What programmatic DOOH gives advertisers this summer

By Matt Bushby, Managing Director, ANZ & SEA 

Every December, Australia heads outdoors. Beaches fill, shopping centres run late, and commuters share the footpath with Christmas crowds. For advertisers, it is a rare window when audiences are out of home and ready to buy at the same time.

It is also the season when programmatic digital out-of-home (DOOH) can do what it does best: respond to the moment as it happens.

For Matt, Perion’s managing director for ANZSEA, summer brings that opportunity to life. In his previous article for Mediaweek, he said, “We’re getting to a point where programmatic DOOH shouldn’t be sitting off to the side as this separate outdoor conversation.” Now, with shoppers outdoors and the retail calendar at its busiest, he sees a chance to prove it.

“Summer and Christmas are when people are most exposed to outdoor screens, and when they’re making the most purchase decisions,” Matt tells Mediaweek. “That makes it the best time to show what programmatic can do. You can respond to what is happening on the ground every day of the campaign.”

From calendar to conditions

Programmatic buying lets advertisers trigger creative by weather, time of day, and location, rather than running one message across a flight.

Perion has the proof across the region. For Vaseline in Malaysia, Perion used live UV data to deliver real-time, contextual skincare messaging across premium DOOH locations, so the message matched the conditions people were in.

Bring the same logic to an Australian summer, and the opportunity is clear.

“If live UV data can shape a skincare message, a 38-degree day can sell cold drinks, sunscreen, and air conditioning,” Matt says. “The screen is the same. What changes is how much intelligence sits behind it.”

Winning the retail run-up

The shopping calendar adds a second opportunity. Black Friday, the final weekend before Christmas, and Boxing Day each call for different messages, at different screens, at different times.

Perion’s planning tools let teams search, plan, and measure across DOOH screens in Australia and New Zealand, using first-party or third-party aggregate audience data. Outmax, Perion’s AI agent, then allocates spend and pacing toward the outcomes the campaign is built to deliver, and keeps reading performance and adjusting as the flight runs. The strongest holiday campaigns are managed, not just launched.

“Retail is where this gets practical,” Matt says. “You can start the season with gifting, move to sale messaging as footfall builds, and shift weight toward the screens that are working. You see what is working while the campaign is still live, and you can put more behind it.”

Fitting the way agencies already work

Matt is clear that agencies don’t need to change their stack. Campaigns can be activated through Perion’s Demand-Side Platform (DSP), or planned in a Perion seat and pushed into the DSP an agency already uses.

“The easier we make DOOH to include in the plan, the more likely it is to be in the plan,” he says. “Christmas shouldn’t be the only time it gets considered.”

That is the bigger prize. Summer is the moment to show what programmatic DOOH can do, and the results can set up a stronger full-year budget in January.