Is Out Of Home Advertising Effective?

We’re exploring Out Of Home Advertising and whether this is something that will be effective for your busines, allow you to connect to your online offerings and diversify into the physical world, as opposed to remain purely in the digital space.

What is Out Of Home advertising?

Also known as OOH or DOOH, this is a type of marketing that is a form of advertisement, generally seen outside of your home/phone. Think of traditional/physical advertisements such as billboards, leaflets, bus stops etc. All of these are examples of out of home advertising.

The difference between DOOH and OOH

As an example of OOH, think of a billboard you see when driving along. It is typically there for weeks at a time and is changed by being painted over. OOH advertising’s main aim is to be seen by a lot of people, to capture their attention as they go about their daily lives. This is usually a far cheaper form of marketing, and is known to increase customer trust and loyalty as they continue to see a business’ presence over time and become familiar with them.

DOOH is a digital form of out of home advertising, the type of dynamic display you would see on a billboard in a large city. These interactive campaigns range from a touchscreen kiosk to slides that change in succession and even weather-reactive ads depending on the current temperature in order to engage the public.

This is a far more versatile form of marketing as the campaigns you run can be changed and updated very quickly, as well as being able to run a campaign for a few days, few weeks etc. depending on the changes and progression within your business in real time. This allows you to display a message that is both relevant and up to date almost immediately.
You can think of it as, all forms of DOOH are OOH, but not all forms of OOH are DOOH.

Combining your online offerings with your OOH is vital

OOH advertising is an incredibly effective form of marketing. However, its effectiveness lies in the action of the consumer. The advertising itself is not causing the consumer to have any direct interaction with your business – it is what happens after viewing the campaign that matters.

Simply, this means that they have to take an action in relation to your business after having seen your advertisement. If they search for you online after seeing your campaign and there’s nothing to interact with, or the same message isn’t consistent across all of your platforms, not only have you lost a chance at gaining a potential customer, but also wasted resources in doing so. Ensure your online presence, such as your website and social media, are providing steps and ways to interact with those you have reached out of home.

This is where a strong landing page can make a real difference. If your OOH campaign sends people online, the page they land on needs to continue the same message, make the next step obvious and give them a reason to take action. We’ve covered this in more detail in our guide to the main purpose of a landing page.

Are TV and radio advertisements more beneficial than OOH?

The short answer is: no. They are actually not more beneficial to your business than other marketing campaigns. Not only are they over-saturated with content, meaning you have a high amount of competition, but also you are displayed amongst various other advertisements within a short break period, therefore standing out becomes even harder. In addition, with TV on demand, pre-recording and streaming sights such as Netflix, more and more people are not viewing traditional TV due to the ability to skip through the ads being played, meaning you are losing large audience viewership due to these updated services.

Ensure both your message and your visuals are enticing

Ensure that you have creative and eye-catching visuals. The attention of passers-by should be drawn to this, and they should be enticed to view your advertisement. Your message will only be delivered if your visual display first attracts the public eye. It’s great having a worthy and thought-provoking message, however if nobody looks at it, then it is wasted effort.

Your message should usually be kept short, as OOH advertising displays are often seen in passing, although you can take many avenues with how you choose to word and display this. A fun and witty line, a powerful collection of words, a touching or surprising fact. What matters the most is that the advertisement as a whole ties together to create a highly impactful campaign.

Is Out Of Home advertising outdated?

There are different viewpoints that you can take on this, whilst it is true that more and more consumers are moving online to find businesses and make purchases, that doesn’t mean the value of OOH is lost. Online advertising, much like TV, is highly saturated and standing out from competitors amongst the influx of ads can be a difficult task to master. In addition to this, consumers are inundated with advertising; on search engines, within their email inbox and on social media, therefore being scrolled past in the crowd of ads without any care is something many marketers don’t consider.

To summarise, yes consumers may be purchasing or browsing more online, however that is where the power of your campaign lies; in leading the public directly to you. OOH advertising continues to adapt to the changing times, and it proves its success and relevancy throughout the years.

Is there any measurable proof in OOH advertising?

Just like many other forms of marketing, a large portion of the success of your campaign depends on the actions of the viewer after having seen your advertisement. Not forgetting that these campaigns are assisting with your customer’s trust and loyalty, helping you retain your current consumers, but they do also provide measurable metrics.

Out of Home is believed to reach 98% of the population at least once a week, with over a third of viewers taking action after having seen your advertisement. In the post-pandemic environment, more people than ever are getting outside and paying attention to what’s around them, particularly in their local areas. By monitoring your business’s sales and engagements before, during and after your campaign, you can easily measure the results that were effected and analyse how effective your efforts were.

Out Of Home advertising is one of the oldest forms of marketing still used today, and it continues to be used for a reason, having stood the test of time for many years. OOH advertising is proven to be highly effective in building brand equity and gaining long term, meaningful customer relationships. This also allows your business to be exposed to a wide demographic of people that are then driven towards your company as a result. This is why it’s important to look beyond surface-level numbers and focus on what people actually do after seeing your campaign. We’ve explored this further in our post on moving from vanity metrics to value metrics.