LONDON, UK – As China’s digital advertising ecosystem continues to evolve, programmatic digital out-of-home (pDOOH) advertising has emerged as a powerful tool for brands looking to bridge offline engagement with online strategy. According to the State of the Nation 2025 – Mainland China Report, jointly released by global digital OOH platform VIOOH and Morketing Research, pDOOH is quickly transitioning from a niche innovation to a mainstream media channel in China’s omni-channel advertising strategies.
Based on a survey of 150 senior marketing decision-makers across advertisers and agencies, the report paints a detailed picture of pDOOH’s accelerating adoption and the sophisticated role it now plays within integrated media plans.
In just one year, the percentage of Chinese advertisers deploying pDOOH campaigns has grown from 24% to 30%, with projections indicating this figure will rise to 32% within the next 12 months. By 2025, pDOOH is expected to rank fourth among 14 major media channels, trailing only digital powerhouses like social media.
pDOOH’s unique ability to digitise offline experiences with scenario based targeting, immersive formats, and measurable performance has catalyzed its emergence as a key pivot point for marketers reshaping media strategy in China.
Far from being treated as a supplementary medium, pDOOH has now become a “standard configuration” in advertisers’ digital marketing toolkits. According to the report, 64% of advertisers currently purchase pDOOH inventory through digital or programmatic teams – a sharp increase from just 27% in 2023 highlighting the shift in responsibility from traditional OOH departments to digital-first teams.
Moreover, pDOOH is now most commonly deployed alongside social media ads, digital audio, mobile advertising and connected TV (CTV). This high degree of integration signals not only strong media synergy but also advertiser confidence in pDOOH’s programmatic potential.
Chinese marketing professionals have identified five distinct advantages that make pDOOH an attractive channel:
- Return on investment (52%)
- Sales and performance uplift (48%)
- Real-time flexibility to trigger ads under optimal conditions (48%)
- Capability for last-minute media buys (45%)
- Brand safety, including resistance to click fraud and bots (39%)
These benefits are driving continued investment and experimentation among forward looking advertisers.
Dynamic Creative Optimisation (DCO) technology, while still in early stages within the pDOOH space, is poised to unlock new creative efficiencies. Over 40% of advertisers who used pDOOH in the past year indicated they plan to integrate DCO in future campaigns, driven by its promise of real time, contextually relevant messaging.
By marrying data driven targeting with adaptive creativity, DCO presents an opportunity to scale personalised messaging across high impact offline formats, enabling brands to engage audiences with precision and timeliness.
Despite strong momentum, challenges remain. The report notes a lack of widely recognised benchmark cases and the absence of a unified attribution framework, both of which contribute to advertiser uncertainty in campaign measurement. Additionally, gaps in data connectivity between platforms and media owners hinder the full realisation of a closed-loop pDOOH ecosystem.
Nevertheless, opportunities abound. As offline foot traffic rebounds and the cost of online reach continues to rise, pDOOH presents an attractive alternative for advertisers aiming to extend reach, drive performance, and diversify media mix. Furthermore, the integration of AI and DCO is expected to accelerate pDOOH’s value proposition, both creatively and operationally.
Read the full report: viooh.com/sotn
