As pandemic restrictions continue to ease, most people are eager to spend more time outside, meet up with friends, travel, and generally get out of the house. There’s one practice that everyone sees anywhere and everywhere, with each brand getting more creative than the last: advertising.
Getting outside more means people are exposed to more of it, and not just within their computer screens. Experts estimate we see somewhere between 4,000 to 10,000 ads every single day. With more options than ever before to get our message out there, it equals a wealth of opportunity for brands big and small. Caveat — it can be like running on a treadmill trying to be that one in 10,000 that your target audience remembers, much less acts upon.
The good news is there are methods you can use to boost up your brand recognition, and in turn, build trust with your audience and entice them to take action.
While digital is all the rage (we are #1 advocates here at Periphery), it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t go back to our roots, tried and true, ol’ faithful to supplement: Out-of-home. A strategic out-of-home strategy enables advertisers to enjoy extended engagement with their target audiences in ways other mediums cannot match.
OOH advertising constitutes advertising used outside of a consumer’s home. It includes ads posted on billboards, bus shelters, benches, posters, airports, and much more. We all spend some of our time outdoors, so utilizing OOH ads in combination with digital advertising can be highly rewarding for advertisers.
Why Use Out-of-Home Advertising?
The demand and spending for out-of-home (OOH) advertising campaigns has increased in recent years. As technology advances, combining new tools and traditional real-world ads promises to help marketers and advertisers pursue new opportunities to reach out to their target audience more effectively.
OOH advertising uses a mix of physical media formats that cannot be blocked, skipped, deleted, or viewed by bots.
OOH ads are a tangible format that people notice in the real world as they go about their daily activities. This makes it possible to achieve a massive reach within your target market to raise brand awareness and recall. You might see an advertisement in a bus shelter, then again on a highway billboard, and then a third time while browsing the web; the first two physical instances can serve to reinforce the third digital experience and boost the chances of your ad being clicked on due to brand recognition.
Although you’ve likely seen countless OOH ads in your lifetime, it may not be completely clear as to why OOH ad spending has increased or how it can help your business reach a greater audience. Let’s break down a few reasons why OOH ads might be a great option for you to explore.
#1. OOH Ads Connect With the Right Audience and Increase ROI
Perhaps the most important aspect of OOH ads is their ability to be placed in specific locations to reach the precise audience that you are aiming to engage. Location-specific marketing uses mobile data to identify patterns of travel throughout the day. This data is then used to determine where you should place your OOH ads for optimum results.
Through the use of location-based marketing data, your business can more effectively reach your target audience and lower your CPM. Let’s say your target demographic is students in the 18-25 range. OOH ads can be placed in locations frequented by your target audience, such as at a university or a mall, ensuring higher conversion rates.
Although most brands allocate more funds to digital marketing, OOH ads have a higher return on investment than other traditional and digital channels. Allocating funds to the OOH advertising channel can positively impact your bottom line, for less comparative cost.
#2. OOH Advertising Allows for Creativity and Innovation
OOH ads cover a wide range of creative options that serve to drive genuine connections with your brand. They can make lasting impressions on your key audience and give your creative team a chance to innovate and display their unbounded creativity in your advertising campaign. They can be loud, attention-grabbing, and daring by using bold visuals paired with catchy phrases or clever headlines.
OOH ads can also utilize experiential marketing, in which a business allows potential customers a chance to “experience” their brand through various means. This can take many forms, but allow for an ultra-personalized representation of your brand’s values, image, and offerings. There have been no shortage of incredibly unique experiential marketing campaigns which were wildly successful in the past decade alone.
Positioning your advertising in the public domain of the real world also means you have greater control over where your brand’s image is placed. When done well, OOH ads can stick into the minds of your audience for a long time.
#3. OOH Drives Online Engagements Through Increased Brand Reputation
OOH marketing offers you the ability to amplify your ads on other media channels. Pairing your OOH campaigns with digital advertising can achieve excellent click-through rates. This is known as O2O marketing. Online-to-offline marketing encourages consumers to make a purchase offline after being exposed to online marketing—or vice versa.
Out-of-home marketing materials can also include QR codes which direct consumers to your website, offer discounts on products and services, or sign them up for marketing communications. Additionally, QR codes allow you to easily track conversions on Google Analytics through UTM parameters, enabling your business to see not just how people scanned your QR code, but also which advertising location gave you the best results.
A study found that brands who dedicated a portion of their media budget to OOH advertising saw an increase in brand trust and perception of brand quality. Their investments into OOH ads boosted the effectiveness of their online advertising and overall improved customer loyalty.
#4. OOH Generates Consumer Action
OOH not only has a wide reach, but can also trigger consumer behavior. It has the biggest impact on awareness, recommendation, and purchase-intent metrics when compared to other forms of advertising. When done well, OOH ads can capture the attention of your target consumer base and trigger them to purchase or recommend your products or services.
The Bottom Line
It would be more than understandable for someone to survey our increasingly digital world and society, and completely pass over the great potential possessed by OOH advertising. But the truth of the matter is that OOH advertising is here to stay, and, in some ways, outperforms digital advertising.
OOH marketing helps brands promote their products and services in ways that digital advertising simply cannot. With cookies and tracking pixels quickly losing significance, executing an outdoor advertising campaign can take your market presence to the next level.
How Can Periphery Help?
Knowing how to navigate this lucrative advertising platform can be overwhelming, but using an advertising partner can help you streamline this process and execute a successful outdoor marketing campaign. It will also help you build your brand and track the reach of your advertising campaign.
At Periphery Digital, we leverage our long-standing strategic partnerships with out-of-home advertising vendors to ensure advertisements are in the right place, at the right time, all for the best price possible. Contact us today to start your out-of-home campaign on the right foot.
