Out-of-home (OOH)
In practice, for a UK buyer
The paragraph above is the neutral answer. This is the part a vendor glossary leaves out.
Worth separating from DOOH when reading a media plan, because the two behave differently. Classic OOH is bought for a fixed period at a fixed price and cannot be paced, targeted by daypart or turned off. Digital screens can be. UK out-of-home overall was still contracting in the IPA Bellwether for the second quarter of 2026 even as the digital share of it grew, so an OOH line in a plan is usually a DOOH line in practice.
What this one connects to
Most confusion in media buying comes from two adjacent terms being used interchangeably, so these are the neighbours worth reading next.
Digital out-of-home (DOOH)
Advertising on digital screens in public places — roadside billboards, rail stations, shopping centres, office lifts, gyms. Increasingly bought programmatically by screen, venue type, geography and time of day rather than as a fixed two-week poster site list.
Proof of play
A seller-supplied record confirming that a specific advert played on a specific screen at a specific time, with the play logged rather than estimated. The out-of-home equivalent of an impression log, since a screen cannot report who was in front of it.
More on channels and formats
The seven things you can actually buy, and the words the sellers use for them.
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