The real world opportunity: The impact of DOOH during big cultural moments

Summer always brings people outside. This year, it’s bringing them together around the kind of cultural moments that your brand may have waited years for.

The Knicks’ historic championship run catalyzed a citywide communal phenomenon, uniting New York through its biggest victory since 1973. That same collective energy is showing up around the World Cup, as host cities across North America welcome millions of fans from around the world and hometown crowds take to the streets for their own teams.

And while this summer has been exceptional, it's also a reminder that cultural moments pull people out of their homes and into shared spaces all year long. In fact, every playoff run, festival and tentpole event has the power to shift where people are, what they are paying attention to and how they feel.

The opportunity is not just recognizing these moments, but being ready to meet them – in the communities people gather and with messages that match the energy around them. Digital out-of-home (DOOH) is built exactly for that kind of presence. 

The moments made for DOOH 

A few brands have already shown what it looks like when cultural momentum and media strategy align, using DOOH to become part of the experience itself.

During the NBA Finals, Pepsi's "We Outside" campaign turned real fan photos into billboards outside Madison Square Garden, refreshing creative as the series unfolded. Nike moved just as fast, lighting up the billboards outside the Garden as the team’s run captured the city’s attention and rolling out new creative moments after the emotional win. Spotify took a different angle, running billboards featuring real fans’ playlists to capture the city's mood throughout the run.

Together, the campaigns show the difference between advertising around a cultural event and participating in it. They pulled directly from the fan experience – the photos, the playlists, the emotion around the run – and leveraged DOOH to make their brands part of how fans experienced the moment. 

Where culture goes, your brand can follow

This opportunity exists for any brand, but capitalizing on it takes more than good timing. Cultural moments are dynamic: a fan might start the day anticipating a game over drinks, ride a wave of excitement in the stadium, second-guess a referee's call on the walk to the train, then end up back at a bar celebrating – or commiserating – hours later. To show up in a way that feels relevant, brands need a DOOH strategy that accounts for where people are, what they are doing and how the moment is evolving.

Here’s how to build a media plan for this: 

Add precision to public attention 

Big cultural moments create large, diverse crowds, but with DOOH, you can reach the specific audiences that matter most to your brand. Third-party audience segments can help you reach specific groups based on interests, demographics, behaviors and real-world visitation patterns, whether that's international travelers, sports betters, ride sharers and high household incomes. You can also layer in first-party data to create another touchpoint with your own customers. 

Map media to the action 

Where you activate matters as much as showing up at all. Point-of-interest (POI) targeting lets you plan DOOH around the real-world locations tied to a cultural moment, from stadiums and fan zones to sports bars, restaurants, retail locations, hotels and transit hubs. Campaigns can be built around high-traffic or high-intent areas where your audience is most likely to be, whether they are attending an event in person, watching nearby, traveling through the city or gathering before and after the main event.

Activate when attention is highest

Not every hour of the day calls for the same message, especially when culture is shaping how people move, gather and make plans. Dayparting lets you activate DOOH during the windows when your creative is most likely to land. For example, a coffee brand might show up early as fans head into a full day of festivities, while an apparel brand could reach people walking toward the stadium, prompting a last-minute jersey or gear purchase before they get inside. Later, a fast-food brand could lean into late-night cravings as crowds head home.

Build in flexibility 

From a last-minute lineup change to an unexpected win, cultural moments rarely unfold in a straight line. Programmatic DOOH gives you the ability to adjust quickly as the moment changes, whether that means refreshing creative, pausing a message that no longer fits or shifting focus to a different location.

Dynamic creative takes this flexibility one step further, allowing you to shift messaging in real time based on data inputs such as location, weather and time of day. For example, you can build anticipation with countdowns before a major event, integrate live scores during a game or direct people to their next stop, like your closest restaurant location. 

Get out there 

This summer is showing what happens when audiences gather, attention sharpens and brands find a meaningful place in the experience. As cultural moments continue to bring people out into the world, DOOH offers a unique way to be present in the places where those experiences take shape – close to what people are watching, sharing and talking about in real time.

For brands ready to plan with that movement, the opportunity is clear: DOOH does not just help you reach people around culture. It helps you earn a place in it.