The digitalization of out-of-home (OOH) advertising in the Czech Republic is entering a new phase. The PlayOn network, operated by the BigMedia group, is transforming traditional static spaces into a dynamic medium that combines the characteristics of television broadcasting and online marketing. Currently, this network comprises more than 650 premium digital screens located throughout the country.
A key benefit of digitalization is the ability to react to current contexts in real time. Advertisers are no longer limited by fixed graphics for the entire duration of a campaign. Technology allows visuals to be changed according to the time of day, current weather, or specific data triggers, such as the result of a sports match or the jackpot amount in a lottery.
“A campaign can be launched almost immediately, synchronized across cities, and the creative changed without production costs,”
state network representatives, adding that digital OOH (DOOH) thus gains a flexibility previously reserved for the internet environment.
The new medium is often referred to as “street TV.” It adopts the ability for mass reach and high visual dominance from classic television broadcasting, and data logic and rapid optimization from the online world. An advantage over mobile devices remains the fact that outdoor advertising in public spaces cannot be skipped or turned off. Moreover, digitalization is becoming a natural part of urban furniture, from public transport stops to premium LED formats in city centers.
The effectiveness of this approach is also confirmed by data from cross-media modeling carried out in cooperation with Median. According to these analyses, DOOH brings significant incremental reach, especially among younger and mobile target groups who watch linear television less frequently. Furthermore, research by Kantar suggests that out-of-home advertising shows results comparable to television advertising in key performance indicators (KPIs) such as brand awareness or purchase intent, but at lower costs.
The transition from traditional billboards to digital screens does not mean the demise of classic outdoor advertising but its evolution. The PlayOn network demonstrates that by connecting hundreds of spaces into a single managed entity, a channel emerges that can unify messages across the republic in a matter of minutes – an example was the recent nationwide campaign dedicated to Jiří Bartoška, which at one moment took over all network spaces.