Ad platform Kubient announces ‘first’ complete RTB channel for DOOH ads

Ad platform Kubient has released what it describes as the first true end-to-end real-time bidding (RTB) marketplace for digital out-of-home (DOOH) locations.

The new offering, Chief Digital Officer Chris Andrews told ClickZ, is focused initially on closed-network video screens in bars and restaurants, point-of-sale (POS) screens and screens in bus stops in the U.S.. The current inventory represents about 40,000 – 50,000 screens from National Retail Solutions (NRS) Media and ReachTV network, Kubient said.

While other ad platforms make out-of-home digital screens available in varying degrees, Kubient claims its new patent-pending solution offers the first DOOH marketplace that provides everything available to desktop and mobile devices – real-time bidding based on the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s OpenRTB standard, a direct connection between supply-side platforms and demand-side platforms (DSPs), and ad delivery.

The out-of-home screens available in the Kubient marketplace, Andrews said, become “just another checkbox” by digital advertisers when they choose channels.

With the addition of this channel, he said, advertisers can target mobile users by their mobile device IDs when they are near a targeted DOOH screen, and then deliver ads in real-time to either the mobile device, the DOOH screen or both.

Andrews said the current focus is on delivering existing creative assets that DSPs already have, which means the delivered ads are primarily ads made for the web, such as display ads.

Digital billboards are not currently in the offered inventory, he said, but will be added “eventually.”

Kubient’s DOOH RTB channel can be and is integrated with other ad platforms, he said, although he declined to mention which ones. Within four to six months, he added, the inventory will expand to half a million screens, and include Canada and Europe.