Advertising is the only way to communicate your product or service offering to your audience. It’s your choice to either reach out to your customers wherever they are or opt for the out-of-home advertising approach. Whichever method you use, the primary goal is to reach out to your customers in such a way as to let them know what you’re offering.
Since technology has evolved over the years, and there has been an increase in customer awareness, the advertising industry has evolved as well — and business owners are devising better ways of reaching out to their target audience.
In this guide, you’d discover the nitty gritty of out-of-home advertising, and how you can grow your brand using this ad model.
OOH or Out-of-home advertising is a marketing model that reaches potential customers outside their homes. This is also called outdoor advertising. The primary motive is to spread brand awareness, reassure, reinforce, and direct the customer to the business. The marketing strategy pays more attention to brand engagement and awareness, and little attention to conversion rates.
Studies show that the average person spends seventy percent of their time outside their home. And if you engage them during this period, you’re sure of leaving an impression in their minds. The goal is to capitalize on the time spent outside the home and convert them into loyal fans.
For clarity, out-of-home advertising is also known as outdoor advertising.
Contrary to popular belief, there are various out-of-home advertising models. Although billboard advertising is the most popular, it’s not the only outdoor space advertising model. Here are the various types of out-of-home advertising.
If you take a drive down the street, you’ll most likely come across billboard advertising. They are large print ads showcased on highly elevated boards. Typically, you’d find them along high footfall areas — and that could be along stadiums, shopping malls, or complexes.
Since a large number of commuters and pedestrians get to pass through and see these billboards, it serves as a reliable way of creating brand awareness among the public.
These are communication materials that are used to draw the customer’s interest at the point of purchase. It helps the customer make last-minute decisions and purchases. They are also known as point-of-purchase advertising.
Displaying complementary products like earphones and phone covers at a smartphone store is a typical example of point-of-sale (POS) advertising. Other notable types of POS advertising are:
These types of advertising are usually seen on building tops and tops of buses. And it comes in three categories — advertisements on buses, subways, and adverts wrapped around taxis.
Retailers serve as intermediaries between producers and consumers. In retail advertising, brand awareness and interest are driven using retail stores. This way, the target customer’s opinion is influenced, and the customer gets to buy complementary products from the store.
A good example is when retailers use the buy one get one free strategy to drive product sales.
Business adverts placed along benches, sidewalks, kiosks, bus shelters, newsstands, and furniture are referred to as street furniture advertising. If you’re looking for a clear way of communicating from a distance, then you need to consider street furniture advertising.
One of the major benefits of this ad type is its proximity to the audience. It helps boost brand awareness to the public.
When you place adverts on a temporary boarded fence in a public area, around construction sites, then you’re doing construction advertising. It comes with multiple benefits like promoting the brand’s product or service offering whilst protecting the public from site works. It’s a sure way of increasing your brand awareness and marketing your products or services to the public.
Nowadays, people pay less attention to out-of-home advertising. But that doesn’t mean it’s less effective than other advert models. If you’re like most people, the classic billboard in your local stadium comes to mind when you hear out-of-home (OOH) advertising. Well, that’s okay — and you’d agree that it generates lots of reach, and probably offers a great way to build brand awareness.
However, the plethora of options in the marketplace is making people forgo it for better advertising channels. And one of the primary reasons why people are opting for other alternatives is because these alternatives offer a better return on investment than the OOH advert model. Well, that’s far from the truth as the OOH advertising model keeps evolving as the years roll by.
With the introduction of eye catchy visuals and other compelling imaging systems, drawing lots of attention in the marketplace has been easy. And if you can create impactful messages, then you’d pretty much convey your messages with ease.
Another benefit of the OOH advertising model is its affordability. The advert model is incredibly affordable, and with little investment, you get to boost your brand awareness in the marketplace.
When the cost per impression (CPM) of the OOH advert model is compared to other channels like radio ads, online ad campaigns, and other viable alternatives, there is no doubt that the OOH advert model is arguably the most affordable option available today.
However, some OOH advert types like billboards are quite expensive, but if leveraged the right way, you get to generate massive value for your business. Imagine placing an OOH advert in a busy area of the city, and the sheer number of people who would see the ads.
Well, that has the potential of increasing your brand visibility by a long shot. If you’re looking for massive returns on investment, then OOH advertising is probably your best bet.
Most retail brands opt for out-of-home advertising when it’s time to grow their brand awareness. Here are some out-of-home advertising examples that top the list.
McDonald showcased lots of food items using the M-shaped sundial ad. And it’s one of the best out-of-home advertising you’d come across in the marketplace. What makes the ad stand out is its delivery — it shows the time of day a specific snack is served. For instance, cheeseburger in the afternoon, coffee in the morning, and so on.
The social media platform chose to showcase some tweets at the height of the pandemic. The concept worked since a vast number of people are familiar with a Twitter post, but they only get to see it when they log into their smart devices.
A Twitter post on a billboard drives lots of attention and gets people talking — and that’s good for the brand. And there’s the certainty of having the user’s tongue wagging when their tweet is featured on the billboard. Furthermore, tweets featured on the billboard will most likely generate lots of retweets, likes, and comments.
CVS launched a thrilling OOH campaign at the New York Times Square. By merely showcasing lots of unedited selfies with the #BeautyUnaltered hashtag, they get to generate lots of engagement around the brand. Regular people who published unedited selfies using the hashtag get the opportunity of getting featured on the billboard.
But how did the brand benefit from it? Well, it leads to more brand recognition and visibility. Imagine the number of people who’d see the image. Well, that’s the kind of result you get with OOH advertising. Aside from the brand recognition and visibility, they got their hashtags spread across various social media platforms.
If properly utilized, OOH advertising gets you some offline and online brand recognition — and CVS proved just that!
Out-of-Home advertising comes with its benefits and drawbacks. Here are some advantages and disadvantages you should know of.
No doubt, you cannot ignore the importance of out of home advertising as it is directly engaging with lot of people. But it requires manual labor work to install the infrastructure and maintain it. You cannot precisely monitor the conversion tracking with this traditional outdoor marketing.
Now with the rise of digital equipment, now such outdoor marketing are also done with digital and dynamically changeable content. E.g. if any country who wins the FIFA world cup and goes to the home country, the whole outdoor advertising platforms can show the greeting message along with brand advertising.
In terms of targeting, measuring and monitoring, the answer is yes. Moreover more and more manual labor is required to handle physical items to display the ads. Whereas in digital online marketing the resource utilization is low but no doubt smart resources are required.
This smart resource issue can also be resolved if you have smart tool to analyze and monitor your campaigns. With such tools you can handle multiple of campaigns and keep track of multiple metrics at the same time.
For example, as a business owner, you can use PPC campaigns to boost the level of interest and engagement of the public before they come across your OOH advertising. But managing multiple campaigns is not an easy task.
Lots of dedication and attention to detail goes into it — and that’s why you need tools like the PPC Signal tool.
Let’s say you’re running a campaign, and you’re focused on measuring the cost per conversion. All you’ve got to do is navigate to the PPC Signal dashboard and choose the cost per conversion metric. An automated signal will be generated on your screen, and these signals are generated from real-time data.
The signals displayed offer insight into the cost per conversion metric, and you also get to know more things about trends, anomalies, outliers, and shifts in the data.
To explore the signal, click on the Explore button.
After clicking on the Explore button, the graphical data representation of your campaign will be displayed on your screen, and you will get to discover more insights about the cost per conversion metric.
There is an option of showcasing your data in a tabular form. This way, you get to discover how other relevant metrics are affecting your campaign.
Careful study of the data displayed will help you make more informed decisions. In the long run, you’d end up generating better results while lowering your cost per conversion. With the PPC Signal tool, you get to effectively manage your campaign and resources while generating a good ROI.
Outdoor advertising, also known as out-of-home (OOH) advertising, out-of-home media, and outdoor media is an advertising experience that’s gotten outside the home. It could be in the form of posters, wall capes, or billboards.
Traditional outdoor advertising types include posters and billboards. Companies can opt to use street furniture, point-of-sale advertising, retails, lamp posts, or bridges for advertising purposes. There is also the option of digital outdoor advertising.
OOH advertising includes categories like transit, billboards, and alternatives.
OOH advertising is typically found outside the customer’s home.
Marketing channel where promotional media is dynamically and digitally displayed in outdoor and public spaces.
Out-of-home advertising has evolved over the years. As a business owner, you get to use this marketing strategy to boost your brand credibility, visibility, and relevance in the marketplace. You’ve got to choose the right OOH advertising category that best suits your business.
Out of door advertising is not as much measureable as compared to digital or online advertising. There are tools like PPC Signal available in the market which can handle your hundreds of Google Ads campaigns simultaneously and you can track them closely by looking at different aspects of the campaigns e.g. cost, impressions, cost per conversions etc.
We will help your ad reach the right person, at the right time
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