DOOH advertising in India.

A printed hoarding is sole occupancy for a period. A DOOH screen is a slot inside a rotation. A roadside loop typically runs several advertisers across a minute or two, with a spot of about ten seconds, repeating through the hour. Longer spots exist. They are a different buy, not a free extra.

National networks, airport concessionaires, mall networks and metro contractors all sell some version of this. The environment matters more than the logo on the proposal, because a mall atrium and a flyover face do not reach the same person or hold them for the same length of time.

Roadside LED is the visible format: highway and arterial faces in Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai and the other large cities. Mall screens — atrium, corridor, food court, lift lobby, store entrance — reach people who are already out to shop, heaviest on weekend retail hours.

Metro screens in metro cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad reach the same commuter every weekday, which is a frequency buy. Airport screens reach a narrower, higher-income audience with a long dwell, in departure halls, on columns, at baggage reclaim and airside. Fuel-forecourt screens catch a few minutes of waiting. Office-lobby and lift screens are a B2B environment: a still audience, no street noise.

Dayparting is the useful lever. Morning drive, mid-morning, lunch, evening drive and night are different messages and different categories. Weekdays suit a corporate audience. Weekends suit retail and leisure, especially in malls.

Geographic selection is the other lever that is real today: specific screens, specific stations, a short radius around stores. Some networks add audience selection from anonymised mobile footfall. Programmatic, impression-based buying exists but, in our experience, the inventory behind it is still a slice of the market. Most plans that work are still a direct buy, with programmatic added where the audience data is actually on the screen you want.

Most roadside and mall DOOH runs without sound. Plan for that. Lead with the brand in the first moments of a ten-second spot. One line, high contrast, no fast cutting. Roadside creative has to work at speed. A mall or metro screen can carry slightly more, because people are standing still. A QR code belongs on those stationary screens, sized for the distance, not on a face people pass at 60.

Files are typically MP4 or a still image, at HD and at 4K for premium faces. Roadside LED often has its own pixel map. Ask for it before the film is finished.

Pick the environment before the city list. Malls, metros, airports, roadsides and offices are different audiences. Then decide whether you need reach or repetition. A metro station repeats against the same people. A mall network spreads wider and repeats less.

Match the creative to the dwell. A roadside face gets one idea. An airport screen can explain a little more because the person is not leaving. A static message on a shared loop is paying for a capability it does not use — if the frame never needs to change, a printed face may be the better instrument.

We can structure part of a deal in goods or services, not only cash, on the same terms as any other barter: value agreed in writing, channels named, media planned to the brief rather than to leftover slots.