OOH Advertising 101: What Is Out-Of-Home Advertising

Advertisement is one of the best mass communication tools that can be used to spread information and awareness. Out-of-home advertisement is one of the major types of ads employed today.

Out-Of-Home (OOH) advertising is quickly becoming one of the various methods of creating consumer awareness as it is fast evolving and gaining momentum in multiple sectors. Without prior knowledge of this tool, it is easy to look down on the power out-of-home advertising yields. Below, we uncover what ooh advertising is, the types of ooh advertising there are, and why ooh advertising is crucial.

What Is OOH Advertising?

Out-of-home advertising is a form of advertising found outside of a person’s home. In recent times, this includes difficult-to-miss signs like billboards, kiosks, bus shelters, and all types of eye-catching signage. If it is an interactive sign and you see it outside the comfort of your home, it counts as an out-of-home advertisement.

Advertising is one of the best ways to catch consumers’ attention and interest them in a product, service, or even information. OOH advertising provides a broader outreach across all demographics with a strategy that involves using graphic content to induce brand awareness in people that would otherwise be unaware.

Out-of-home advertising has revolutionized the game of rapid broadcast coverage and has helped deepen the penetration of information into the urban environment. Although home ads are a creative way to reinforce information concerning a brand to unsuspecting potential customers in the comfort of their homes, what happens outside of their homes?

According to the out-of-home advertising association of America, the average customer spends about 70% of their waking hours outside their home. This accounts for a 70% gap in which these customers miss possible home adverts that will lead to brand awareness and possible brand engagement. Out-of-home advertising enables brands to capitalize on and bridge this gap, ensuring that brands reach their target audience regardless of the place and time.

Types Of OOH Advertising

Out-of-Home advertising accounts for millions of outdoor signages in different formats all around the world. OOH advertising comes in various interactive and attractive signage designed to catch commuters' eyes in real-time. Many people encounter ooh advertisements at various points without realizing what they are. Some types of out-of-home advertising include:

1. Billboard Advertising

Billboard advertising is the most commonly used form of ooh advertising. It involves displaying eye-catching characters on elevated boards placed in areas or locations of high foot traffic and transits.

Billboards have been around for a long time and provide a means for brands to carry out large-scale marketing. They allow marketers to use formats larger than can with traditional signage, ensuring greater visibility which is the sole purpose of any OOH advert.

According to the OAAA, billboards account for one of the most extensive reaches in OOH advertising, with 80 percent of American consumers admitting they noticed a billboard advert in 2019. While this is an impressive reach, it is essential to note that there are various types of billboards, and the impact varies. Some types of billboards include:

Static Billboards

These are the most common types of billboards found along roads, highways, and in places with high footfalls. These billboards were popularized since the 1800s and featured an erect board display with a fixed advertisement format. They are intended to capture the attention of motorists with their massive signs, letters, and pictures.

Mobile Billboards

Mobile billboards are the less popular form of billboards. They are a type of transit advertisement that features a billboard attached to a vehicle like a truck or a bus that drives to specific locations. This provides a flexible me and marketing designed to reach areas where the target demographic is situated.

Digital Billboards

Digital billboards are slowly taking over their static counterparts. These billboards feature pictorial or video content and customized texts displayed on LCD or LED screens. Digital billboards, also called digital out-of-home advertising or DOOH, have become an essential part of outdoor advertising. DOOH provides maximum optimization of adverts and a medium for brands to create deeper communication with their audience via personalized messaging.

Digital ad billboards are more attractive than their static counterparts and are bound to pull more attention. This might have something to do with the growth and popularization of digital devices like computers and mobile devices that cause people to look at screens with moving images reflexively.DOOH advertising also has better recall results than static billboards, with about 83 percent of people admitting to remembering something they saw on a digital billboard.

Since it is a dynamic, computer-controlled display, digital OOH enables brands to display real-time OOH ads to a broad reach of audience. Where creating and updating a static billboard requires a time-consuming effort of physically bringing the OOH ads from the elevated board, digital billboards can be updated at the click of a button.

While various services provide digital signage options, most of these brands require a purchase. There are also digital signage options, but they do not offer the same quality service from paid digital signage plans. Loop TV proves to be an exclusion to this.

Loop TV is a business TV that provides unlimited entertainment and signage services to businesses. It offers advanced digital signage solutions, complete with game-changing features that help companies create intriguing, entertaining, interactive, and informative bite-sized ad content.

2. Transit Advertising

Transit or transport advertising is a form of OOH advertising commonly found on public transport. This form of out-of-home advertising is economical and flexible, enabling the message being passed across to be encountered by different people in various locations. Some transit advertising methods include ads on buses, trains, and buses.

3. Street Furniture

Street furniture advertising is a form of OOH ad that features brand or campaign adverts displayed in street furniture in locations with high foot or vehicular traffic. This form of advertising features OOH media displayed on sidewalks, bus shelters, kiosks, newsstands, benches, and other furniture and equipment found in the street. Because street furniture ads are often placed on amenities constantly in use by the public, they are a great way to communicate with the public through OOH media. This enables a brand to efficiently and effectively dominate its market.

4. Retail Advertising

In the case of retail advertising, retail store owners use store advertising to interest people in their products and gear them towards making a purchase. This self-promotion helps retail stores to attract more customers and, at the same time, increase their sales revenue.

Retail advertising often features marketing campaigns centered around their own brand awareness using media formats displayed on roofs, shop windows, banners hung in or outside the store, banners or posters displayed on elevator walls, or even floor graphics. As long as the ad aims to increase retail brand awareness and conversion, it counts as a retail ad.

5. Point-Of-Sale Advertising

Point-of-sale or POS advertising refers to an OOH advert done to pull a customer’s attention at the moment of purchase. This is done to fuel the need for a last-minute, unplanned purchase. POS ads often feature posters, logos, signs, screens, or any media format with the ability to influence a customer’s purchasing decision.

Benefits Of Out-Of-Home Advertising

Out-of-home advertising remains one of the most effective marketing methods today. OOH brings brand awareness campaigns on the move where they are more receptive and interactive. OOH ads are a welcome break from the online digital world of advertisement. The internet is a rabbit hole filled with millions of information, and a campaign can easily get lost amongst the thousands of others vying for attention.

With people spending most of their time engaging in outdoor activities, time spent watching home media and home ads is getting lower. It is growing more difficult for brands to engage with their select audience. OOH advertising provides a solution for brands to connect with the right audience in their active space. This helps brands stand out, amplify their messages, and create lasting impressions on their audience.

As a plus, technology advanced well enough over the years to create a positive impact on outdoor media and ads. Advertisements are becoming more glamorous and effective.

What You Can Do With OOH Advertising

There is no limit to what you can achieve using out-of-home ads. OOH ads are hard to miss, making them the perfect tool for interacting and building interest in potential customers and clients.

1. Target a Large Number of People

Unlike other forms of advertisements- like online digital ads- that are often overrun and covered by the multitudes of the information uploaded on the internet daily, it is very difficult to miss out-of-home ads. These billboards, digital screens bearing digital ads, and the other different types of ooh grab people’s attention and hold on to it even when they break eye contact.

OOH ads are a leading means of communication with the public, making them one of the best tools any marketer can have in their sales and campaign arsenal. They create a positive impact on consumers through a channel that just cannot be ignored.

2. Drive Sales

Due to its ability to reach a broad audience, OOH advertising is one of the best methods to drive sales. Billboards, digital screens, furniture advertising, PS ads, and all other OOh formats can increase business revenue via OOH campaigns.

Out-of-home ads can display information about a brand, products or services a business offers, and other smart concepts that engage customers. While traditional signs are also suitable for sales campaigns, digital OOH ads are undoubtedly the best ways to stand out and ‘wow’ potential customers while remaining persuasive.

Loop TV allows businesses to create and customize bold, eye-catching designs to drive sales. This makes it easier to share product information, ongoing promotions, and brand and brand awareness.

With Loop TV, businesses can create brand stability and customer insight using creative advertising methods like displaying positive customer reviews about the brand. This strategy improves brand transparency, incites trust in potential clients, and drives them to make purchases.

3. Create Bite-Sized Content

Less is more with out-of-home ads. The audience are on the move and will probably not spend enough time in a place to digest long ads. You only have a short moment to entice people, pass on your information, and ensure they are interested enough to remember whatever information you send.

With the window of attraction and attention open for just a few seconds, it is essential to shorten your ads into easily digestible, bite-sized contents. This means the characters and words should be kept to a minimum while you capitalize on attractive pictures and videos to send your message across to the audience clearly.

With lengthy ads, the aim is to inform, but with bite-sized OOH ads, it is essential to add entertaining details. Digital signs are often the go-to options for interactive, engaging, and informative ads like this one.

Loop TV provides several built-in digital signage features that make it easier to create short and intriguing ads for the audience on the go. This business digital signage not only makes it possible to customize ads but also makes it easier to curate short advertisements that can be automated and scheduled to play on a Loop T Player. With Loop TV, businesses can effortlessly create dynamic bite-sized, personalized content played continuously to trigger positive behavior in the target demographic.

4. Be Creative

Out-of-home adverts help marketers’ creativity to shine through. With the need to curate engaging, clear, and lasting messages to commuters, marketers are increasingly creative with different marketing strategies using various OOH formats.

The streets, highways, bus stations, and airports are your slate. No rule determines how you should reach out to your audience. Experiment with different creative ad strategies. This helps to create unique contents that stick to the audience.

5. Spread Real-Time Information

Some formats of OOH ads, especially digital formats, enable the communication of real-time information to the public. This makes it possible to communicate time-sensitive offers like promotions and discount offers.

Why Loop TV Is The Best Option

Out-Of-Home advertising is taking the marketing world by storm- and for a good reason. It has become a significant way for businesses to extend the reach of their engagement out of traditional home ads mediums.

Loop TV is a business TV that provides entertainment and digital signage options. Clients who use Loop TV digital signage services do not need to make payments or purchases as the service is fully licensed. All you need to do is fill in your business details on the official Loop TV page, wait for the player to be shipped to you without a surcharge, and set it up when it arrives.