Louise Enright, Director, Source out of home with this week’s Out \ Look on Out of Home
There’s a rhythm to good media planning – the right message, at the right time, in the right place. It’s a principle as old as advertising itself, but one that has taken on new meaning in an age where attention is both scarce and deeply contextual.
Today, what cuts through isn’t just what’s said but also when, where, and why it’s said. That’s where Dynamic DOOH proves its value. At PML Group we’ve seen firsthand how the role of Dynamic has matured from a tactical extra to a strategic necessity. Delivered through the Liveposter platform, it allows campaigns to respond in real time by adapting creative based on live conditions such as weather, location, or timing. These aren’t just clever flourishes but meaningful shifts that drive attention and action in equal measure. The beauty lies in the backend. Liveposter does the heavy lifting when it comes to individualisation, automatically generating relevant copy based on parameters like location or time, meaning brands don’t need 50 different creatives to make an impact across 50 panels.
Consider Cadbury, whose city-wide digital countdown in the lead-up to Advent turned familiar festive anticipation into a live experience. The brand’s ‘Cadvent’ campaign wasn’t just “on” but was active, updating daily across mall digital environments to count down to the season’s start at a time when it meant more to the audience. Around the same time, RTÉ Radio 1 synchronised its DOOH messaging with broadcast schedules, using dayparting and visual cues like pulsing “on air” signals to align the medium with that brand’s moment when it too mattered the most. These weren’t just well-timed campaigns, more so campaigns that were built for timing.
That kind of contextual alignment is what gives Dynamic DOOH its edge. In the Moments of Truth research, we’ve seen how creative that responds to the environment performs better across every key metric. Relevance drives recall, comprehension, and ultimately response. When the message fits the moment, it earns attention rather than demands it.
The creative possibilities are only limited by the imagination. In a campaign close to my heart, Guinness Storehouse brought proximity messaging to life with Liveposter-powered panels. Each panel displayed the exact walking time from that specific location to the Storehouse, nudging passers-by with personally relevant proximity cues. The weather-responsive copy was layered on top of this, turning every message into an invitation grounded in both context and place. “Rain is temporary, our views are forever,” greeted passers-by on grey days, while brighter weather saw a shift in tone and message. It made the journey feel considered before it even began. Similarly, FULFIL used Liveposter to shape its January messaging around time of day and cultural cues, delivering context-sensitive lines like “Motoring through Monday” on gym screens and triggering ‘Yellow Monday’ content as a playful antidote to Blue Monday. In both cases, the message didn’t just appear, it arrived at the right time and in the right mindset.
I think these moments matter because they feel like part of the world around us. We check the forecast, we adjust our route, we grab a snack on the way home. Our days are shaped by small decisions in shifting contexts, and Dynamic DOOH gives brands the ability to meet consumers within that rhythm. Rockshore, for instance, tapped into this by dynamically tailoring messages by proximity to pubs around the Christmas season, acknowledging where the viewer was and folding into the local mood when a “sos beag” felt like the next appropriate move. These subtle signals reinforced the brand’s ‘Refreshingly Irish’ tone, aligning with the national mood in a way that felt light, familiar, and local.
What is most compelling is how naturally this all fits into how people live. The best examples of Dynamic DOOH don’t feel like advertising that’s trying to be smart, they feel like media that understands its place. One creative idea, carefully built, can now adapt across location, weather, moment, and mindset. That’s not just efficient, it’s effective. It allows brands to do more with less without compromising on impact.
This shift isn’t just technical, it’s conceptual. The conversation has moved. It’s no longer “Can we do something dynamic?” but “What would we do differently if we planned this way from the start?” In my experience, the brands leaning into that thinking are seeing the benefit, not only in performance but in how their campaigns are received. Relevance isn’t a byproduct anymore, it’s the brief.
Dynamic is an evolving story, but the platform is proven and the appetite is growing. Dynamic DOOH offers a different kind of canvas, one that’s more fluid, more alive, and more in tune with the reality of how people move through the world. It doesn’t interrupt. It invites. And in an economy defined by attention, that invitation is everything. And when context and relevance align, the business impact follows. In an environment obsessed with efficiency and effectiveness, these campaigns prove that creative agility and strategic intent can drive measurable results.
Louise Enright is Director of Source out of home, part of PML Group.