Why You Should Consider Investing In Digital Out-Of-Home Advertising

Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH) Advertising Is a Unique Marketing Platform.

It brings together some of the most effective elements of digital and traditional marketing channels, combining “the high-impact creative associated with TV, with the advanced audience targeting and attribution capabilities of digital marketing,” explains Greg Sterling, Vice President of Market Insights at digital marketing firm Uberall.

That powerful digital combination has led to substantial growth in the overall out-of-home (OOH) advertising sector in recent years, with ad spending in 2018 exceeding a record $8 billion, according to a report from the Out of Home Advertising Association of America (OAAA).

In fact, ad revenue in Q2 last year grew by 7.7% year-on-year — the highest growth for OOH in any quarter since 2007. Meanwhile, all other forms of traditional media – TV, radio and print – have suffered advertising revenue dips.

For out of home, though, digital undoubtedly has been the catalyst in this equation. With a 35% increase in DOOH ad spend from 2010 to 2018, PricewaterhouseCoopers says it will overtake traditional outdoor advertising this year.

What is it about DOOH convincing major brands such as Apple, Netflix, Google and Amazon to invest in the medium?

Changing the Location-Based Advertising Game

Generally, location-based marketing has targeted mobile devices and not much else. Advancements in DOOH platforms, however, have created new opportunities for brands to utilize peoples’ mobile-location data.

As Pierre-Yves Lanneau writesOpens a new window , “with location and time data, marketers can even track consumers’ physical movement in real-time, an element of DOOH that will revolutionize how brands connect and engage consumers out of the house.”

That type of information is even being used to attach mobile-location data and store visitation tracking, a true game-changer for the sector as it implies measurable — and positive — ROI.

That ability to track individuals’ movements in real-time enables marketers to hyper-target specific prospects — but also to define KPIs to measure the effectiveness of an outdoor campaign.

DOOH Programmatic Growing

Programmatic technologies are among DOOH’s key value propositions, bringing advanced automation to a segment that’s streamlining and improving the brand building and activation options available through the medium.

The automation and efficiency inherently a part of programmatic — more flexible trading and a broad variety of enhanced targeting and data triggers — will help DOOH resonate even more with marketers.

Admittedly, programmatic is still a small piece of the pie but it’s getting bigger. Industry forecasts set DOOH growth at 70% year-on-year. It’s projected to reach $1 billion by 2024.

VIOOH (Viewed Impression Out Of Home), an organization that calls itself an open, independent and global marketplace for out-of-home, says that the accessibility, accountability and measurability offered by programmatic will bring a new generation of brands and buyers to outdoor advertising.

In recently published reportsOpens a new window , in which it conducted in-depth interviews of senior executives in the outdoor and programmatic advertising industry, the organization highlighted the key positive factors of programmatic trading:

• Flexibility of budget allocation and execution;
• Efficiencies of technology and application of data;
• A premium transparent marketplace;
• Making DOOH accessible to digital buyers;
• Offers media buyers increased granularity and less waste — buying of specified frames and days has been replaced by buying targeted impressions and audiences by the hour.

Cross-Platform Boost

DOOH improves campaign performance and boosts reach on other channels, improving social media engagement and resulting in an uptick of related digital searches on mobile devices.

“Relevant technologies are merging DOOH campaigns across other media, enabling a unified strategy among devices and platforms,” says Lanneau. I’m sure we can expect to see this functionality come to the fore of digital outdoor considering that people are almost 50% more likely to engage with a mobile ad after seeing its digital (or print) billboard counterpart.

Similarly, research conducted by NielsenOpens a new window revealed that nearly 40% of American adults admitted that they visit the related Facebook page or make a relevant Facebook post after seeing an out-of-home ad. A quarter will post to Instagram.

As Sterling writes in Martech TodayOpens a new window , “for younger users in particular, the distinctions between online and ‘IRL’ are disappearing. And with the exception of mobile, perhaps no other advertising channel or medium embodies that hybrid experience as much as OOH.”

Capturing Younger Consumers

Crucially, there is some evidence that suggests DOOH does a good job of capturing younger generations’ attention — a demographic that has proven itself particularly immune to advertisingOpens a new window .

One study from creative agency ComposedOpens a new window found that out-of-home and in-store marketing had a bigger impact on Generation Z’s product discovery than Snapchat, Facebook or Twitter.

And in the UK, research by YouGov revealed that 18-34 year olds trust DOOH content more than they do other media platforms, with a particular affinity for engaging with DOOH ads when affiliated with live content, such as a concert or sporting event.