What is OOH advertising? You should consider this question if you are serious about your advertising endeavors. After all, advertising is not just about selling a product, but growing your brand.
You should therefore look at OOH as a gateway to brand marketing, as it supports a variety of brand-building efforts that boost brand recognition, reputation and equity.
Billboards are one of the fundamental tools used in the world of OOH, and for good reason.
Nearly two-thirds of customers often look at the messages on billboards. While this is impressive, it’s not nearly as impressive as some of the other data on the efficacy of billboards. Whether you’re fully acquainted with what is a digital billboard, or completely new to the space, it’s key to understand what it is and what it offers for your business.
This article expands on OOH advertising so that you’re fully in the know of this potent advertising method.
What is OOH Advertising
OOH advertising is a collective term used to describe all the advertising that is found outside the home and is usually set to attract a wide, public audience.
Also called outdoor advertising and an acronym for out-of-home advertising, OOH advertising denotes the placement of highly visual and impactful media in public spaces, typically to promote a company, brand or event.
However, aside from its commercial value, OOH can be used to elicit large-scale attention and is therefore used for various other purposes in addition to its main intent of advertising.
The outdoor spaces that host OOH ads are commonly high–traffic areas where pedestrians and tourists walk, drive and travel. OOH forms of advertising are bent on attracting a wide audience and are also inclined to be seen repeatedly by the same people.
OOH exists as an alternative to online advertising methods such as banner ads, carousels and PPC (or pay-per-click) ads. While much of today’s advertising exists in the online space, companies would be remiss if they ignored the out-of-home approach to their advertising.
Why is OOH Advertising Important and Beneficial
This kind of advertising represents one of the amplest opportunities for advertisers to connect with their audiences. As marketers, advertisers or business owners, you have much to gain when you implement OOH in your advertising stack.
Data on the Benefits of OOH Advertising
Let’s first jump right into the data that proves the efficiency of using the OOH route.
- According to the Out of Home Advertising Association of America (OAAA), billboards have an astounding 497% return on investment.
- This roughly translates to a return of $6 for every $1 spent on advertising.
- Another OAAA study reveals that nearly a whopping nine in ten adults (88%) notice OOH ads and nearly 80% of those viewers are inspired to take action.
- OOH clearly affects those who see its messages.
- The most effective OOH ads are capable of triggering a 38% increase in mobile engagements between customers and brands. Customers are also 17% more likely to interact with a brand after being exposed to an OOH ad.
- This shows that OOH is never a standalone operation. It helps customers throughout their customer journey with your brand, as it makes them more likely to engage with it. This includes partaking in engagements with your brand on their mobile devices. Thus, OOOH stimulates your customers’ mobile UX.
Why OOH Advertising is Important for Your Brand
Aside from understanding why OOH is beneficial through the validating statistics provided in the prior section, it’s also important to understand how OOH is a must from other perspectives.
First off, out-of-home advertising reaches and engages a wide range of people, many of whom are within your target market.
Although many customers spend their time online, they still leave the home, either regularly for work and errands or occasionally to meet with friends and family. You wouldn’t want to miss an opportunity to reach your customers when they’re out and about.
OOH ads are usually large and hard to miss. They also allow brands to showcase their creative side. Thus, when their size and creative content are coupled, they are easy to notice and pay attention to. (As aforementioned above, almost 9 in 10 adults notice outdoor signage).
Many of the same people pass by out-of-home ads on a daily basis, thereby seeing messages from the same brand repeatedly. This is incredibly invaluable to brand marketing, as it ingrains your brand and its messages into the minds of your customers. As such, OOH ads trigger brand recall and recognition.
In this way, OOH fosters qualified buyers, i.e., the ad viewers most likely to buy from you. When your potential customers have qualified impressions or QI, this denotes that they have seen your ad at least 6 times or more. When customers hit the 6-impression mark, they are then ready to make a purchase decision, as they know enough about your brand.
After all, no one will buy from you after seeing your ad just once. This is because there is a psychology to advertising, which requires potential customers to know enough and feel something toward your brand – typically a sense of credibility and self-identification before they buy.
Enhancing Customer Experiences instead of intruding on them
Last, but certainly not least, outdoor advertising is a non-intrusive form of advertising. Most people are tired of ads, as no matter how much customers love a brand, ads are usually unwanted and intrusive.
Digital ads especially are notorious for negatively impacting your customers’ UX. No one wants an ad interrupting their activity online, whether it involves looking at a webpage, reading content, watching a video or playing an online game. When an ad pops up during these engagements, it is intrusive and irritating.
This is not the case with out-of-home ads.
OOH ads don’t intrude or invade any experience. They simply exist. When a customer sees outdoor signage, they’re doing so voluntarily, not because such ads are foisted upon them in a way that prevents them from continuing their activities. Instead, outdoor ads enhance customers’ experience.
They are created as visually appealing images and words that capture attention without impeding people from going on about their day. Thus, OOH ads create positive customer experiences and shape positive associations with your brand.
Best of all, you can’t click out of or scroll away from an outdoor advertisement.
The Types of OOH Ad Channels
Now that you understand the importance and advantages of OOH advertising, let’s discover the specific types of OOH advertising. Consider the following types when you’re deliberating on the right outdoor ad channel for your brand. Here are a few examples of prominent OOH channels:
- Street furniture
- Ads on bus shelters
- Booths
- Benches
- Bike stations
- Electric vehicle charging stations
- Transit
- In-station train and subway ads
- Ads along the sides of buses and cars
- Ads in airports
- Taxis
- Place-based
- Wallscapes
- These are painted on the side of a building or made of an extraordinarily large billboard.
- Ads in restaurants, pubs and bars
- Shopping areas
- Special events
- Handouts of flyers
- Wallscapes
- Retail
- Ads in supermarkets
- Posters on storefronts
- Shopping areas and malls
- Billboards
- Digital billboards, a kind of DOOH (digital out-of-home advertising)
- Bulletins
- Junior posters
Why digital billboards are the best OOH Advertising channel
Out-of-home advertising is filled with variety, both in terms of the types of advertisements it encompasses, along with the types of benefits it offers.
When it comes to choosing the best OOH method, we suggest taking the DOOH route, particularly digital billboards. Digital billboards offer you the best of what billboards offer, and take it a few steps further.
Given that billboards can be beautifully designed to command and retain attention, digital billboards take this to the next level. They are bright, flashy and rotating, making them nearly impossible to ignore.
Their inclusion of light makes them stand out far more than an analog billboard. They will make any space your customers are traveling that much more special, which in turn,forms positive associations with your brand.
Additionally, DOOH advertising tends to show ads in rotation, which is proven to be a strong method of brand recall. This is especially powerful when you feature your blips (8-15 second ad slots) for an extended time period.
Because these billboards are digital, you can regularly change and update your ad to your liking, without the need to invest too much time and energy. This kind of dynamic and changeable nature is not found in regular billboards. Because they’re dynamic, you can supercharge your ad campaigns with various messages.
With the right DOOH platform, digital billboards are also highly cost-effective, allowing you to uphold your advertising budget. There is no need to spend tens of thousands of dollars on DOOH ads. The right platform will enable you to create and post ads without overspending.
Using the proper OOH platform
Tackling your OOH campaigns is never a feat when you’re equipped with a strong OOH platform. Blip comes to the rescue in this regard, as our DOOH platform includes everything you need to run smooth OOH campaigns.
We offer digital billboards across a host of locations with large traffic – all across the country. Through the Blip Billboards platform, you’ll easily be able to schedule your ads, assign their locations, choose your own daily budget and even bid on blips.
Need some help? Our team of billboard support professionals is there to assist you whenever you need it. So even if you’re a newcomer to digital out-of-home software, you won’t be going at it alone.
