How DOOH differs from display advertising
A display banner is viewed from thirty centimetres, a DOOH creative from three to twenty metres, often while walking past. Viewing time is three to five seconds. There is no click, no sound and no way to replay the creative. Whatever is not understood in that time is lost.
The rules the industry agreed on in the IDOOH, the Institute for Digital Out of Home Media, follow from that: little text in large type, one message per creative, brand and product large and permanently visible, calm motion instead of fast cuts. A creative that breaks these rules is often rejected by the network during approval.
Technically, DOOH creatives are simpler than HTML5 banners: a JPG or PNG in the exact target resolution, or an MP4 of fixed length. No hosting, no click code, no file size limit in the kilobyte range. Image quality matters instead: a screen in a station concourse is two metres tall, and everyone sees compression artefacts there.
The DOOH sizes of the IDOOH standard
With the Creative Specs 2.0 of 2022, the IDOOH defined a handful of resolutions that practically all European networks and programmatic platforms accept. A creative in these sizes runs on Ströer, WallDecaux and HYGH screens as well as through DSPs, without producing again per network.
- ✓1080×1920 portrait Full HD: the most common DOOH size. Station and mall screens, digital city light posters, shop-window displays, transit TV.
- ✓1920×1080 landscape Full HD: infoscreens, mall networks, poster galleries, gyms, petrol stations, restaurants.
- ✓2160×3840 and 3840×2160 UHD: the 4K versions for high-resolution networks such as WallDecaux Digital City Network. Networks upscale from Full HD if they must, but increasingly ask for native UHD.
- ✓1920×1200 (16:10) and 1600×1200 (4:3): older networks, beamboards and retail screens without 16:9 panels.
- ✓Network-specific sizes: Ströer City Tower 336×1092, City Board 672×432 and 576×408, Giant Indoor 1152×1024, 1620×1080 and 3200×640, Giant Outdoor 500×1200 and 576×1584. These screens take no standard size; the creative must be built in exactly their resolution.
- ✓sRGB colour space, 72 dpi, no bleed. The file must have exactly the pixel size of the booked format; a creative with a different size is rejected or scaled blurry.
| FORMAT | SIZE | USE |
|---|---|---|
| DOOH Portrait Full HD | 1080×1920 | Digital Out-of-Home · Ströer Station · City Light · City Window · Mall · WallDecaux · HYGH |
| DOOH Landscape Full HD | 1920×1080 | Digital Out-of-Home · Ströer Infoscreen · Mall · Retail · WallDecaux Poster Gallery |
| DOOH Portrait UHD | 2160×3840 | Digital Out-of-Home · WallDecaux DCN/DDN |
| DOOH Landscape UHD | 3840×2160 | Digital Out-of-Home · IDOOH-Standard |
| DOOH 16:10 | 1920×1200 | Digital Out-of-Home · IDOOH-Standard |
| DOOH 4:3 | 1600×1200 | Digital Out-of-Home · Beamboards · Fahrgast-TV |
| DOOH City Tower | 336×1092 | Digital Out-of-Home · Ströer City Tower (Hamburg, Stuttgart, Dresden) |
| DOOH City Board | 672×432 | Digital Out-of-Home · Ströer City Board / Roadside (je nach Stadt) |
| DOOH City Board S | 576×408 | Digital Out-of-Home · Ströer City Board / Roadside (je nach Stadt) |
| DOOH Giant 9:8 | 1152×1024 | Digital Out-of-Home · Ströer Giant Indoor (je nach Standort) |
| DOOH Giant 3:2 | 1620×1080 | Digital Out-of-Home · Ströer Giant Indoor Düsseldorf Flughafen |
| DOOH Giant Banner 5:1 | 3200×640 | Digital Out-of-Home · Ströer Giant Indoor Essen |
| DOOH Giant Outdoor 5:12 | 500×1200 | Digital Out-of-Home · Ströer Giant Outdoor (je nach Standort) |
| DOOH Giant Outdoor 4:11 | 576×1584 | Digital Out-of-Home · Ströer Giant Outdoor (je nach Standort) |
Ströer, WallDecaux, HYGH: what the networks expect
The three major German networks build on the IDOOH standard and add their own rules on file type, spot length and lead time. The myfeedr export includes a README that lists these points for each network.
- ✓Ströer: Station, City Light, City Window and Mall in portrait 1080×1920, Infoscreen, Mall and Retail in landscape 1920×1080. Plus product-specific sizes: City Tower 336×1092 (Hamburg, Stuttgart, Dresden), City Board 672×432 or 576×408 per city, Giant Indoor 1152×1024, 1620×1080 and 3200×640, Giant Outdoor 500×1200 and 576×1584. Stills as JPEG or PNG in the exact resolution, video as MP4 at 25, 29.97 or 30 fps, progressive, without audio track; managed service uncompressed or H.264 at 30 Mbit/s or more, programmatic H.264 at 12 Mbit/s or less. Spot length must match the booked time to the frame, no title slates or blank frames. PowerPoint, InDesign and Flash files are not accepted. Deliver three to five working days before start.
- ✓WallDecaux (Digital City Light Poster, Digital City Network, Poster Gallery): JPG or MP4, ten seconds, 1080×1920 or 2160×3840 portrait, 1920×1080 for the Poster Gallery. Only calm graphic animation; live-action footage is not aired on roadside screens so drivers are not distracted.
- ✓HYGH (shop-window and in-store displays): 9:16 as image or video, booking and upload in the self-serve portal, approval within one working day.
- ✓Programmatic DOOH (Ströer SSP, VIOOH, Broadsign, Hivestack): Full HD works everywhere, UHD only where the platform lists it. Stills run on every screen; videos need the bitrate of the respective platform, usually six to twelve megabits per second.
The design rules for screens
The IDOOH Golden Rules come from effectiveness studies with eye tracking and are the benchmark for approval at every network. myfeedr builds each DOOH size accordingly: type is clearly larger than in the display set, the subline is dropped, the button loses its click arrow, and a safe zone stays clear at every edge. Ströer measures the cap height of every typeface and requires at least 30 pixels, up to 80 pixels on Giant Outdoor screens; myfeedr keeps that floor in all DOOH sizes.
- ✓At most two key messages: headline plus price or claim. Everything else belongs on the landing page, not on the screen.
- ✓Text on at most twenty percent of the area, sized so that a word stays legible from ten metres. Ströer prescribes at least 30 pixels cap height, 40 to 80 pixels on Full HD screens; legal copy may be smaller.
- ✓Brand visible throughout, for at least ninety percent of the spot. A logo that fades in during the last second is not noticed.
- ✓Product or packshot large: at least forty percent of the image height. An image that is fine in a display banner looks tiny on a screen.
- ✓Safe zone of about forty pixels per edge at Full HD; bezels, frames and slightly miscalibrated panels crop the outer edge.
- ✓Contrast over finesse: bold areas, no thin lines, no light grey type on white. Screens in the sun lose half their contrast.
- ✓Contact as a short URL without www instead of a click: it sticks within seconds. A QR code is possible, but in that short time and from a distance it is rarely scanned.
How myfeedr produces the DOOH set
It starts with your website: myfeedr reads logo, colours, fonts, copy and product images and builds every size of the chosen package from them. For DOOH a dedicated design mode applies the screen rules: larger typography, cut-out product image on at least forty percent of the height, logo at screen size, safe zone at the edges, no click element.
In the studio you edit headline, price and call to action, swap the product image and choose between two layout variants. The preview shows every size in its true proportion. The export delivers a ZIP with all sizes as JPG in screen quality and as PNG, plus the README with delivery notes per network. If a booking needs motion, export the creatives as MP4 spots as well: H.264 without audio, 25 fps, frame-exact in the booked spot length from 5 to 30 seconds, either as a still or with the animation chosen in the studio, in the bitrate profile for Ströer managed service (30 Mbit/s) or programmatic (at most 12 Mbit/s).
The DOOH package is available on its own or as part of the Complete package, which also includes all display, Google, social and newsletter sizes. Analysis and preview are free.
| PACKAGE | FORMATS | PRICE |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | 4 | 79 € |
| Mobile | 7 | 99 € |
| Display | 21 | 199 € |
| Display + Social | 31 | 299 € |
| Complete | 52 | 349 € |
| DOOH | 14 | 149 € |
Frequently asked questions
- Is a still image enough or do I need a video?
- All major networks air stills. A JPG in target resolution runs for the booked spot length, usually ten seconds. Some bookings still require an MP4 file; myfeedr produces it from the still or from the animation, frame-exact in the booked length and in the matching bitrate profile. Roadside screens only allow calm animation anyway.
- Which size do I need for digital billboards?
- Most digital billboards and city light posters run portrait 1080×1920; infoscreens and indoor networks run landscape 1920×1080. Ströer City Tower needs 336×1092, City Board 672×432 or 576×408 depending on the city, Giant Indoor and Giant Outdoor have their own sizes per site. The myfeedr DOOH set contains all of them; the booked product is named in your order confirmation.
- Why is the subline dropped in the DOOH sizes?
- The IDOOH Golden Rules allow at most two key messages per creative and little text in large type. Headline plus price or claim are those two messages; a third line would not be legible from a distance and would put approval at risk.
- Can I book the creative programmatically?
- Yes. The IDOOH sizes are the standard of DOOH SSPs and DSPs. Full HD in portrait and landscape covers almost every screen; upload UHD where the platform explicitly lists it.
- How much lead time does a DOOH campaign need?
- Networks review every creative before it airs. Ströer asks for three working days, WallDecaux similar, HYGH usually approves self-serve bookings within one working day. The myfeedr set is ready in minutes; plan the rest for approval.
DOOH creatives from your website
Enter your address and see all six IDOOH sizes in the preview – free until you want the files.