OOH advertising is increasingly dynamic, as we come to find engaging outdoor campaigns that combine interactivity and participation with shareable content and brand retention. This sweeping sensation helps to put brands on the map and live longer among their audiences. One out-of-home channel that is becoming increasingly popular among brands and advertisers is digital OOH. Digital OOH helps grow the outdoor advertising market because of its wildly modern approach to engaging campaigns that utilize contraptions found outside the home. It also has the power to be programmatic, which we’ll get into during this article. Let’s examine the ways digital OOH is breaking new ground in advertising and why it’s predicted to only skyrocket moving forward.
Digital OOH Optimizes Consumer Reach
One of the main reasons why digital OOH is changing the game forever is that it uses changeable, digital screens to customize messages depending on which target audience is impressionable during that time and in that place. Because of this technology in effect, advertisers can create more personalized messaging while also using custom triggers to attract people towards the ad.
People with mobile devices on hand passing by a digital OOH can receive real-time ads that reinforce the digital OOH display in their smartphones. It’s basically like the digital OOH travels with them. Real-time ads contribute to a reactive solution that advertisers and companies strive for when communicating with valuable demographics. This consumer reach creates a closer, more personal connection between advertiser/marketer and buyer because the digital OOH impression can last much longer than where it’s situated in an outdoor space.
Digital OOH Allows For Storytelling
Unlike simple, static billboards or advertisements that have a 5-30 second spot on other media channels, digital OOH has the ability to tell a greater story. One of the main goals of digital OOH is creating audience interaction and making a brand accessible to everyone, which is exactly what the “Make Google Do It” digital OOH campaign executed in the picture above. Google invited people in London, UK to use its voice assistant by detailing many tasks people can now command Google to do in order to make their lives a lot easier. This was done in the form of 100 pieces of copy, smart scheduling, and audience engagement that was only made possible by digital OOH advancements. The contextual ads acted as a playful reminder that Google can, in fact, help them out. What better way to say this than by reaching people when they’re out on the run?
This created strong brand retention and awareness about Google’s voice assistant feature and spearheaded their ever-growing OOH presence. This campaign changed the OOH ad game because it gave people special incentives to interact with a brand’s feature and connected their daily activities to a beneficial device on the market.
Digital OOH Is Programmatic
Digital OOH ads are also changing the game partly due to programmatic opportunities. This means that programmatic out-of-home is the electronic communication of DOOH sales transactions with the interference of computer networks. As a result, efficiency and growth will rise with the campaign. Media buyers can simply access the network’s inventory list and book digital screens without the hassle of negotiating the details and terms of a campaign in length. Programmatic benefits both network owners and advertisers by allowing them to work closely on developing a strong OOH campaign.
As a matter of fact, Zenith predicted that by 2020, 98.6% of Canadian display ad dollars will be dished out in a programmatic fashion. They stated that Canadian advertisers will spend about $2.35 billion on display ads come 2020, and $2.31 billion of that amount will be programmatic. Even though it’s been discovered that Canada’s digital market is smaller compared to places such as China, France, and Germany, they’re using their ad dollars smartly to create more programmatic in OOH markets.
Digital OOH Gives Consumers The Joy To Play
The above picture showcases a gamification stunt led by Star Casino in Sydney’s China Town that celebrates Chinese New Year by featuring an interactive game on a digital touchscreen giving people the chance to win big. Participants could play a little game and win vouchers for dinner prizes at Star Casino, which generated over 2000 interactions and delivered a 58% increase in interactions year-over-year. This is only made possible though digital OOH because certain screens, depending on the campaign and the product’s intention, can be felt by the human touch in order to generate more of a meaningful interaction and a giveaway experience. Digital OOH is changing the game partly by allowing people to play a game.
After checking out a few important reasons why digital OOH is changing up the ad game, it’s quite blatant to see the evolvement in outdoor advertising efforts that best capture audiences from all over. Stay tuned, DOOH is coming to a screen near you.
