DMEXCO 2025: What We Learned About DOOH

by editorial on 26th Sep 2025 in News

Emma Labrador, CMO at Displayce, tells us why DOOH was a hot topic at DMEXCO 2025...

Walking through the halls of DMEXCO this year, one thing was striking: DOOH was not just present, it was everywhere. Panels, research sessions, and discussions with agencies all pointed in the same direction, out-of-home has firmly entered the digital mainstream. Even major players such as Ströer and WallDecaux dedicated an entire DOOH Summit to share insights and underline the medium’s growing importance.

So, what do we take away from DMEXCO 2025? For me, three themes stood out.

1. DOOH, a proven growth engine.

The figures shared by Caretta Research at DMEXCO highlighted a simple fact: DOOH is now one of the strongest growth drivers in digital advertising. Global OOH leaders are accelerating their digital transformation, and the market is expected to grow by 40% over the next five years.

This momentum is not just about the increasing number of screens. It is fuelled by three powerful forces: the spread of digital screens across everyday venues, the rise of retail media that puts in-store advertising at the centre of brand strategies, and programmatic automation that makes DOOH accessible to a wider pool of advertisers. In other words, DOOH is no longer perceived as a channel add-on, it is becoming a pillar of digital media transformation.

2. Attention is the real currency.

As Laure Malergue, our CEO, reminded us: "beyond the glance, attention is about noticing, processing, and remembering." DOOH consistently performs strongly on that front, standing out for its ability to capture and hold attention in busy public spaces. When creative quality is high, the effect is amplified: people don’t just see the message, they remember it.

What matters most is that this attention translates into impact across the entire customer journey. DOOH drives awareness, nurtures consideration, and reinforces purchase intent. Programmatic DOOH builds value at every stage of the marketing funnel, proving that it is not only about visibility in the moment, but about creating lasting influence.

In a context where marketers are looking for channels that truly deliver, this is the real power of DOOH: it turns fleeting moments of attention into measurable business outcomes.

3. Programmatic makes DOOH smarter and more accessible.

Stefan Benno Müller’s talk at the DOOH Summit made it clear that programmatic is not just about efficiency. It is a lever that transforms the scale and scope of what brands can achieve with DOOH.

Beyond simple automation, programmatic brings four key advantages: precision (through contextual and data-driven targeting), flexibility (adapting delivery to the moment, location, or situation), creativity (dynamic messages triggered in real time), and anticipation (with solutions like Pulse, designed to identify audience peaks and Prime Time screens to maximise campaign reach).

Combined, these strengths make programmatic DOOH a way to build more relevant and impactful campaigns. For major brands, this means optimised investment. For smaller advertisers, it means access to premium inventory without the traditional barriers of budget or lead time.

What’s next?

The main lesson from DMEXCO 2025 is that DOOH has moved from "promising" to "proven."

To truly integrate programmatic DOOH, agencies and advertisers need to rely on tools designed specifically for this medium. Only then can they fully leverage the power of data and AI, which today can optimise every stage of a pDOOH campaign, from planning to delivery, all the way to performance measurement.

The question is no longer if DOOH should be part of the media mix, but how to use it in ways that make campaigns smarter, more connected, and ultimately more human.