How DOOH Helps Agencies Win More Pitches in 2026

Why Winning Pitches Looks Different in 2026

Winning pitches in 2026 isn’t about who shows the biggest media plan. It’s about who can clearly show how that plan will grow the business. Clients now walk into pitch meetings asking one simple thing: what will this do for sales, store visits, sign-ups, or demand? They want measurable impact, not just reports on views and reach.

Industry forecasts reinforce this shift. According to Straits Research, the global Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH) advertising market was valued at USD 31.16 billion in 2025 and is projected to reach USD 84.03 billion by 2033, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 13.20%, highlighting DOOH’s accelerating strategic importance within modern media planning.

This is where Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH) becomes a strategic advantage. DOOH places brand messages into everyday places such as streets, malls, airports, and locations near stores, while keeping the strategy focused and the results measurable. It’s not an “extra” line in a media plan. Used well, DOOH strengthens the strategic narrative, makes ideas feel more tangible, and makes results more credible

Put simply, pitches today are won by agencies that think beyond phone and laptop screens, connect physical and digital touchpoints, and show how exposure translates into action. DOOH helps agencies do exactly that in a way clients can quickly understand, visualise, and trust. In competitive pitch environments, that visibility becomes a strategic differentiator, not just a media extension.

Why DOOH Gives Agencies a Strategic Advantage in Pitches

DOOH Extends Digital Thinking into the Physical World

DOOH helps agencies to extend digital planning logic into physical moments where audiences actually live, move, and make decisions. It brings the same planning approach used online into streets, malls, airports, and areas near stores. 

Digital planning is largely confined to personal screens such as mobile, desktop and connected TV, where exposure is primarily one-to-one. DOOH introduces a one-to-many layer in shared public environments, extending campaigns beyond individual devices. In a digital auction ecosystem where large and small brands compete within the same platforms, public-screen presence becomes a structural differentiator that amplifies scale and visibility closer to real-world decision moments.

This shift changes the pitch conversation. It moves the focus from potential visibility to real-world influence. From the client’s perspective, this shows that the agency understands behavior, context, and decision moments, not just media inventory.

Source: Moving Walls

DOOH Delivers Incremental Reach Digital Alone Cannot

Digital media struggles to reach people when they are on the move. DOOH fills this gap by showing up in places people already spend time, such as transit hubs, retail centres, and high-traffic urban areas. This gives agencies access to audiences that digital channels alone often miss.

Research consistently shows DOOH exposure drives action. An OAAA and Harris Poll study found that 76% of people took action after seeing a DOOH ad, and 74% of mobile users did something on their phone, such as searching for the brand or visiting its website. This helps agencies position DOOH not as passive awareness media, but as an action-driving channel that strengthens cross-channel performance.

A common misconception agencies still hold is that DOOH functions primarily as an upper-funnel awareness layer. In reality, when integrated with mobility intelligence and visitation tracking, DOOH operates as a mid and lower-funnel amplifier, reinforcing digital exposure closer to decision and conversion moments.

In pitch scenarios, this supports a stronger incremental reach and effectiveness story rather than a duplicated reach story.

How DOOH Makes Pitch Ideas Bigger, Smarter & More Persuasive

DOOH improves not just media plans, but the creative and strategic ideas behind them. It helps campaigns feel dynamic, contextual, and grounded in real-world behavior rather than abstract slide concepts.

a) More Contextual, Real-Time Campaign Ideas

Dynamic DOOH allows creative to adapt based on real-world signals, this makes pitch ideas more performance-oriented and execution-ready. That could be weather-based messages, time-of-day changes (morning vs evening), location-based copy (near offices vs near malls), or live updates that keep the ad relevant.  A good example is McDonald’s in the Philippines. To promote McSavers Mix & Match, McDonald’s ran a programmatic DOOH campaign with three creatives that changed based on conditions: one for sunny weather, one for rainy weather, and one for “Petsa de Peligro” (end-of-month tight budget moments). Over a 100-day tracking period, the team used regular optimisation and weekly reviews to identify which locations performed best and improve delivery. The campaign reached 1.4M+ people and delivered 142.63% of what was promised.

Source: MW x McSavers Mix & Match Campaign in Philippines

b) Stronger Omnichannel Storytelling 

Many pitches claim omnichannel thinking, but still present disconnected channel plans. DOOH helps you demonstrate a cross-channel journey in a simple, trackable way: someone sees the idea online, sees it again while they’re out, and then gets a reminder close to a shopping moment, before digital retargeting.

This makes omnichannel strategy easier for clients to visualise and trust. Physical-world reinforcement increases memorability and strengthens message frequency across environments where purchase intent forms.AHA’s U.S. campaign is a strong example of this “real-life reinforcement” approach. To drive tune-ins for Unstoppable Season 4, AHA wanted to reach South Indian expats across multiple U.S. cities. With Moving Walls, AHA ran a 12-day DOOH campaign across high-traffic South Asian supermarkets in California, Texas, New York, and New Jersey, using footfall signals and location targeting to deliver 550,000+ impressions where the audience lives and shops.

Source: MW x AHA Campaign in USA

​c) Better Use of First-Party & Location Data

Advanced DOOH planning increasingly uses movement patterns, visitation behavior, and location signals to select placements. This allows agencies to justify site selection based on audience behavior, not just traffic counts.

Pitch recommendations become more defensible when tied to:

• Movement corridors
• Retail visitation patterns
• Proximity to conversion locations
• Audience presence by time window

This turns DOOH from a scale channel into a precision channel in the pitch narrative.

Moving Walls Planner supports this by integrating audience insights, and contextual signals into a connected dashboard, enabling planners to evaluate reach forecasts, media costs, and availability in real time before finalising proposals.

This integrated planning architecture differentiates Moving Walls from fragmented or static planning approaches, enabling agencies to model, adjust, and justify DOOH allocations within tight pitch timelines.

Seaoil’s campaign is a one of the location-led DOOH done in a simple, useful way. Using a mapping API, Seaoil showed drivers how many minutes they were from the nearest fuel station, turning the ad into timely, location-specific information. Over a 60-day period, the campaign recorded 1.6M potential views and 164K unique individuals, and it tracked outcomes such as petrol station brand visits and post-exposure conversion rates at top locations.

Source: MW x Seaoil Campaign in Indonesia

Across sectors, similar patterns are visible. Retail brands increasingly use DOOH to drive measurable store traffic near high-footfall zones. Fintech brands deploy contextual messaging during commuting windows to increase search lift and app consideration. In pitch discussions, these cross-sector applications demonstrate DOOH’s versatility beyond a single vertical.

How DOOH Strengthens ROI and Measurement Stories

One of the toughest objections in pitch meetings has always been outdoor campaign accountability. Clients want to know what a channel actually delivers. DOOH helps agencies answer that question more clearly.

Modern DOOH measurement allows agencies to plan around and report: 

• Real-world reach and frequency 
• Link exposure to store visits or footfall traffic
• Track post-exposure signals like brand lift or search activity
• Cross-channel contribution analysis 

Through Moving Walls Measure, agencies can connect ad exposure with store visits and Brand Lift Studies, using anonymized mobility data to measure changes in awareness, recall, preference, and purchase intent.

This level of measurement changes the conversation and reframes DOOH in pitches from an awareness layer to a measurable influence layer. Instead of asking how many people saw an ad, clients can see what that exposure influenced. DOOH helps bridge the gap between awareness and action, making outcome-based selling easier.

How Programmatic DOOH Changes the Pitching Playbook

Programmatic DOOH has changed how agencies plan and buy out-of-home. Campaigns can now be activated faster, budgets adjusted in real time, and delivery optimised based on performance.

Audience-based buying and location-level controls make DOOH feel more like digital media. This fits naturally into how modern planning and trading teams already work. For pitch teams, that matters. Channels that behave like digital are easier to test, scale, and justify, especially in pilot or proof-of-concept ideas.

Best Practices for Agencies Including DOOH in Pitches

Agencies that use DOOH well in pitches follow a few clear principles. They introduce DOOH early in the strategy rather than adding it at the end. They link recommendations to business KPIs instead of formats. They use dynamic mockups to help clients visualise how ideas will appear in the real world.

Just as importantly, they explain measurement upfront and show how DOOH improves reach and efficiency across channels. These steps help DOOH feel like part of the strategy, not a separate add-on.

Conclusion: DOOH as a Growth Multiplier for Agencies in 2026

Agencies that win in 2026 plan beyond screens, measure beyond impressions, and think beyond silos. DOOH supports all three by helping agencies build bigger ideas, smarter plans, and clearer proof of impact.With Moving Walls, agencies can make DOOH a measurable, data-driven part of their pitch strategy, from planning and activation to reporting and optimisation. Contact us to explore how DOOH can strengthen your next pitch.