OOH Ads Speak to Your Audience When They’re Out & About
So much of marketing has gone the digital route these days, and rightfully so; it’s where a vast majority of people spend a considerable amount of their day for everything from entertainment to shopping. Makes sense that brands would want to take advantage of this increasingly powerful virtual landscape. However, people thankfully still spend a good amount of each day in the real world outside of the home — whether driving to work or school, visiting a brick-and-mortar store, or heading out to a park, restaurant, or movie theater.
This mostly “screenless” time presents a number of opportunities for brands to capture the attention of their audiences in different and unique ways through what’s called out-of-home (OOH) advertising, which targets consumers when they are out and about and off their screens. While marketing channels, such as radio, smartphones, and other mobile devices, can technically reach consumers “outside” of their homes, they are not considered OOH, which typically includes:
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- Traditional & digital billboards
- Transit (e.g. bus, taxi, airport, subway)
- Wallscapes/Murals
- Posters
- Arena/stadium ads
- Street furniture ads (e.g. bench, kiosk)
- Shopping mall ads
- In-store signage & product stands
- Guerilla ads (e.g. drone, projection)
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During the pandemic, use of OOH naturally took a massive dip and is still recovering in the face of society’s increasing reliance on digital everything. However, though it may not get the love it once used to, it still packs a marketing punch when done effectively, even offering some benefits that other channels can’t. What can OOH do for your brand and why should you incorporate it into your marketing strategy?
Benefits of Out-of-Home Advertising
High Visibility
You likely don’t need and can’t afford advertising on the Las Vegas Sphere, but it is one of the largest examples of OOH advertising ever. Though considerably smaller, regular OOH advertising, like billboards and in-store signage, is typically still quite large, lofty, and hard to miss, which means great exposure and visibility in high-traffic areas, ensuring your message is seen by most passers by.
Larger Canvas
Unlike the square inches of a digital ad, OOH ads typically come in square feet, presenting a larger area to work with and really pop your graphics and copy. This doesn’t mean you should overwhelm your canvas. Clean, clear, and concise is still the way to go, but the extra space does let you show and tell a bit more and allow you to be more innovative and creative than small social and digital banner ads.
24/7 Exposure
That same billboard or bench signage you pass everyday can really start to stick in your head. When you suddenly need an injury lawyer or local dentist, it’s hard not to think of and consider that brand on the OOH you’ve seen day and night for months. Contrast that to that one radio ad you barely caught or that social media ad you saw for a split second once or twice while scrolling. OOH offers continual exposure to potential customers which creates greater brand awareness, recognition, and recall of your brand in their minds.
Physical Location Targeting
Able to hone in on specific populations according to their location, OOH advertising is strategically placed where it should have the most effect, such as a car dealership ad on a highway billboard, a beer ad on a stadium banner, or an energy drink display at the point of sale. Such focused targeting is not only highly effective but also cost-effective in the long run. OOH lets you reach specific geographic areas, whether local, regional, or national, to coincide with your target audience and marketing goals.
Omni-Channel Synergy
For the best of both worlds, OOH advertising can be a great complement to your digital marketing efforts, driving traffic via everything from web addresses to scannable QR codes. Hitting your audience across multiple channels will only increase brand awareness and traffic whether online or in-store.
“Off-the-Grid” Targeting
It may be hard to believe, but there are still some people who never or rarely ever go online. For instance, according to a 2021 Pew Research Center report, 7% of American adults over the age of 18 (roughly 18 million people) claimed to never go online, including 25% of those ages 65 and older (roughly 14 million people). If you have a product or service catering to the needs and wants of such groups as young children, senior citizens, or digital off-gridders, you may want to choose traditional marketing like OOH over digital, anyway.
Digital Integration
While OOH had been confined to printed images, like billboards and signage, for its first two centuries of use, the digital revolution brought about new technologies, such as LED displays, interactive kiosks, and digital billboards, that are now being incorporated into OOH, creating what is now called digital out-of-home (DOOH) advertising. Instead of physical, static OOH, which takes longer to plan, build, print, and deploy, DOOH ads only have to be designed digitally, can be populated with the click of a button, and can be updated and adjusted in real time. It’s a newer and exciting twist on the traditional OOH that allows for even more convenience and creativity. Recent research also suggests that DOOH may even be more effective.
These are just a few of the top benefits that OOH offers you and your brand, enabling you to connect with consumers in dynamic and impactful ways outside of their phones, tablets, TVs, and PCs. For expert help getting your marketing and communications messaging out there in the virtual world, the real world, or both, M:7 Agency can guide you toward the best solutions and just how, when, and where to do it for maximum impact. Reach out to us today!