Why 2026 Belongs to Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH) and Video
By Jonathan Gudai for rAVe [PUBS]
Published: January 9, 2026
For a decade, “digital marketing” meant chasing consumers onto smaller and smaller screens.
That era is ending.
The real transformation isn’t happening in apps or browsers. It’s happening where algorithms meet asphalt. Where creators show up on the largest screens in the home.
After years of infrastructure buildout and programmatic maturation, digital out-of-home and connected TV are becoming essential physical layers of the digital economy.
Here’s what that means for media plans.
AI Media Planning and the Democratization of ‘Big Brand’ Capabilities
For decades, sophisticated media planning belonged to a select few: large brands with eight-figure budgets and specialist teams.
AI has leveled that playing field.
Today, a regional franchise or challenger brand can describe campaign goals in plain language and receive a multichannel, data-informed media plan in seconds. By the end of 2026, at least a quarter of global DOOH and video campaigns will be AI-planned, with humans setting the vision and AI doing the heavy lifting.
The media planner who once spent three days building a plan can now test five scenarios before lunch.
And while AI becomes a political talking point in the 2026 election cycle, the reality inside offices, agencies and storefronts tells a different story.
AI isn’t eliminating marketing jobs. It’s expanding what those jobs can achieve.
The agencies that integrate AI most effectively — not the ones with the most headcount — will win.
Context Is Queen
Content may still be king, but context is queen — and in DOOH, she rules with precision.
The same ad must speak differently on a rainy Monday (comfort and warmth) than it does on a sunny Saturday (social, energetic, active). When ads adjust to real-world signals such as weather or time of day, they stop interrupting and start resonating.
Take UFC’s partnership with Paramount+. They aren’t just promoting fights. They’re tailoring creative to where fans already are. Sports bars get high-energy promos on Friday nights. Golf clubs see athlete discipline stories on Tuesday afternoons.
In 2026, this stops being a premium capability and becomes table stakes. The DSPs that dominate will be the ones that make contextual triggers effortless to implement.
The Return of Local
The most effective political campaigns have always understood one thing: Persuasion is local. In 2026, commercial advertising finally adopts that same field-organizer mindset.
Smart campaigns aren’t buying citywide impressions. They’re targeting the exact bus stop a swing voter uses on the way to work, with messaging shaped by local context.
Mass reach means nothing without relevance.
Whether you’re running for office or launching a CPG product, the strategy is identical: Win the block and you win the city.
The brands that make this mental shift in 2026 will win.
The Rise of Creator-Powered DOOH
For the past decade, creators have been trapped inside the algorithm — a fleeting existence on a phone screen.
At the same time, creator marketing spend keeps rising while social platform CPMs climb and organic reach declines.
Something has to give.
The creator economy is spilling into the real world. Whether it’s a podcast tour, a product drop or a fan milestone, showing up on a screen in Times Square, on a college campus or on a living room TV signals cultural weight that a viral video alone cannot achieve.
This is about remixing the content creators already make for social and adapting it for DOOH and CTV. For some creators, it also means making content specifically for those mediums.
DOOH as the Interface for the AI Agent Economy
As AI agents begin guiding more purchasing decisions — filtering options, comparing prices, managing schedules — DOOH and CTV will become their real-world interface.
AI agents live in the cloud. Decisions happen in the physical world.
DOOH is where the algorithm meets emotion, where creative elasticity enables richer storytelling across more screens and environments than ever before.
An AI shopping assistant might recommend three dinner spots based on user preferences. But when that consumer is riding the subway and sees a video-enabled DOOH screen featuring a restaurant’s new seasonal menu, that’s when emotion enters the equation.
Advertisers that design for both the algorithmic layer and the emotional moment in the physical world will thrive in the AI-powered economy.
The Verdict
These five shifts aren’t possibilities. They’re inevitabilities.
The infrastructure is built. The tools are ready. Consumers are back outside and back in the office.
The media strategists who thrive in 2026 will stop thinking of DOOH as “outdoor advertising” and start treating it as the physical validation of the digital world.
The question isn’t whether DOOH and video will converge. That’s already happened.
The real question is how quickly agency buyers, planners and brand-side digital marketers seize the moment.
The moment has arrived.
Read the full story on rAVe [PUBS]
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