“Building the region’s largest digital supply and lead the transition into truly scalable pDOOH”

Arab Ad sat down with Jalal Khanfour, Chief Commercial Officer, AlArabia to explore how the company is reshaping the future of out-of-home advertising in the region through scale, digitization, and automation. In this in-depth conversation, M. Khanfour shares how overcoming long-standing infrastructure challenges has unlocked true programmatic DOOH, why Dubai was chosen as the launchpad for automated outdoor buying, and how data, creativity, and cultural change are redefining the role of OOH in an increasingly omnichannel media landscape.

For years, the missing piece in regional pDOOH has been scale. How did AlArabia overcome this challenge, and what infrastructure or strategic decisions allowed you to finally unlock true, programmatic reach?

Over the past decade, the biggest barrier to programmatic DOOH in the region was scale. AlArabia solved this by transforming our entire network into a fully digital ecosystem -large, medium, and small formats; all centrally managed and programmatic-ready. This shift places the Kingdom among the top 10 global markets in DOOH penetration.

With this foundation in place, we are now unlocking true programmatic reach. Our first automated, programmatic-enabled network is launching in Dubai with more than a 100-location allowing for a diversified geographical distribution and hence a more diversified audience buying.

Your transformation to 100% digital coverage is a milestone very few markets have achieved. What were the biggest internal shifts, technological, cultural, or operational, that enabled this evolution?

Reaching full digital coverage required far more than upgrading hardware, it demanded an organizational reset. Technologically, we rebuilt our infrastructure, so every screen functions as a dynamic digital asset: centrally managed, measurable, and ready for automated buying. Culturally, we shifted from selling panels to delivering audiences, impressions, and outcomes.

Operationally, we streamlined what was historically a manual, slow process and made OOH as simple to activate as any digital channel.

Because demand for OOH in the Kingdom is extremely high, digitizing our network expanded capacity while preserving quality and consistency. These shifts are what enabled AlArabia to build the region’s largest digital supply and lead the transition into truly scalable pDOOH.

Why did you choose Dubai as the first city to roll out programmatic OOH, and what does this launch reveal about the region’s readiness for full data-driven outdoor advertising?

Dubai is one of the most digitally mature media markets in the region, with the right infrastructure, pace, and advertiser mindset to support automated DOOH transactions. It’s a market where competition across digital channels is intensifying, and speed and flexibility are now baseline expectations.

Our digital network in Dubai had already reached full coverage, making it the ideal environment to introduce automated buying -streamlining transactions, enabling more efficient delivery, and proving what pDOOH can achieve at scale. We believe Dubai is perfectly positioned to lead this next phase of OOH evolution in an increasingly omnichannel world.

How could brands in the region adapt their media mix to integrate programmatic outdoor, and what measurable outcomes are most exciting to you?

PDOOH in the region is still in its early stages, but the opportunity is clear. As supply grows, brands can integrate programmatic OOH directly into their digital strategies; using the same DSPs, the same audience segments, and the same measurement frameworks they use for mobile, video, or display.

This alignment allows brands to compare performance across channels in a unified dashboard, while OOH consistently adds incremental reach that digital-only screens can’t deliver. With pDOOH, advertisers gain flexibility: dynamic creative, time-of-day messaging, neighbourhood targeting, and the ability to extend consistency across every touchpoint; from the mobile screen to the street.

You say innovation is a responsibility, not a buzzword. How do you ensure transparency, accountability, and real value for advertisers in a space where technology can sometimes outpace understanding?

OOH already operates with a clear and established measurement currency. For programmatic to scale, the industry must commit to the same transparent, unified impression multiplier across all formats.

If every media owner uses a different approach, we risk eroding trust and fragmenting the ecosystem. True transparency requires collaboration and aligned standards between OOH and digital specialists.

At AlArabia, our goal is not to position programmatic as just another sales channel, but to build a reliable ecosystem that brands trust and agencies can plan around. Consistency in measurement is the foundation that will allow pDOOH to grow with confidence.

You position pDOOH as more than a technical upgrade as a cultural shift in how brands communicate. How do automation, creativity, and data converge to redefine the role of outdoor in storytelling and impact?

OOH is becoming more complex, with more advertisers, more budgets and more people to advertise to, so it is not getting any easier to plan for OOH and activate OOH. The channel would lose if we don’t make it easier for advertisers in this more accessible world.

Al Arabia is launching the automated offering which will allow booking inventory in advance allowing advertisers to focus on effective planning, dynamic creative optimization, targeting specific audiences through day parting.

Programmatic OOH demands a new mindset from brands and agencies. What do you see as the biggest mindset shift still needed in the region for pDOOH to move from “nice-to-have” to “must-have”?

The shift of mindset must come from all stakeholders:

Media owners must embrace automation for pDOOH to exist at all, while also protecting the value of the medium. This is why AlArabia adopted approaches that preserves premium quality while enabling the flexibility advertisers expect.

On the demand side, agencies and brands must shift from buying “billboards” to buying audiences, impressions, reach, and outcomes. And finally, the region must embrace experimentation: testing creative variations, contextual triggers, and targeted dayparting to understand what delivers the highest impact.

Many companies in the region talk about programmatic transformation, but adoption remains slow. What do you think is still holding some players back and how is AlArabia choosing to lead instead of wait?

We have built the largest DOOH supply in the region, which allows us to offer the scale, diversity, and quality of inventory needed to unlock the true potential of pDOOH. When advertisers see broad reach, consistent standards, and easier activation, pDOOH stops being a “future opportunity” and starts becoming a practical, high-impact part of their plans.

This consequently allows agencies to focus on selling the medium rather than transacting it. According to a study presented at the World OOH organization in Milano last year, the time spent transacting OOH is 60% while strategic planning is 25% and educating clients is 15%.

So even if OOH is 20% of the ADEX in the region, we believe that it is still not taking its fair share and automating the medium will help deliver the growth that we think is possible to take us to the next level.

Al Arabia understands this opportunity behind automating the buying process and has the supply necessary to unlock this opportunity allowing agencies to spend more time strategizing for OOH and selling our medium.

As pDOOH becomes more measurable and data-driven, it also exposes performance gaps. How prepared is the regional market to embrace full transparency, even when the data challenges long-held assumptions about outdoor effectiveness?

There is a driving dangerous and erroneous belief that pDOOH is more data driven than non-programmatic OOH. This is feeding the narrative that pDOOH is better than traditional OOH, we need to address that dangerous narrative:

The OOH industry in the GCC is already measured, Advertisers understand their Reach, the frequency and OTR impressions of their campaigns. So, OOH has already proven its value through data and research.