OOH Advertising
TV advertising is getting more and more expensive and less and less effective. Similar tendency is observed in other traditional media – radio, newspapers and magazines. Advertisers are getting frustrated and turn to modern outdoor advertising for consolation. We say “modern” because for the past decade the outdoor advertising has drastically changed for the better, became technically advanced and offers new opportunities for advertisers.
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| Modern LED screens on Moscow streets | |
Analysts claim that outdoor advertising offers the best efficiency from the point of view of investments and has bright future ahead. The advertising budgets are constantly redistributed with Out-of-Home segment constantly growing. This tendency became especially marked due to the on-going financial crisis.
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| Billboard, prismatron, street banner and poster – traditional instruments of outdoor advertising | |
According to specialists, outdoor advertising conceptually focuses on attracting consumers’ attention to advertising messages while people are in transit. Therefore, the term “out-of-home” means more than just outdoor advertising – it’s every advertising that a person encounters outside of the comfortable home surroundings.
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| Indoor screen Out-of-Home applications | |
Out-of-Home media companies have long been acutely aware of the change and constantly develop new advertising products to the hyper-active advertising media. The Out-of-Home segment is growing explosively and is second only to On-line Internet advertising.
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| LED banner on the side of city bus Photo credit: Litelogic |
LED posters in the tunnel Photo credit: Signweb.com |
This is not surprising considering that advertisers have serious reasons making them treat outdoor advertising with more attention than a few years ago. The world economy has become truly global, urbanization is proceeding fast. An average consumer has become significantly more mobile and spends more and more time out of his home.
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| Out-of-Home ads in metro | |
The TV is no longer attracting working and active people: their attention is split between dozens of channels and the Internet. Therefore, TV has lost a large part of its luster in respect to delivering an advertising message to the final consumer.
On the other hand, Out-of-Home advertising does not have buttons to change channels or mute the sound, it works 24-7 and theoretically fills all public spaces and takes every imaginable form. In literature on the subject it has long been named “advertising you cannot avoid”. Not surprisingly, these are attractive qualities from advertisers’ point of view. Part of consumers vocally protest against all-pervasive outdoor advertising and clever advertisers are utilizing this protest while planning new advertising campaigns.
Debates about an obtrusive advertising are raging all over the planet. However, it’s not enough to surround a person with advertising. It’s necessary to make him look and remember. This cannot be done against person’s will, the advertising must somehow appeal to him.
New technology comes to help. The choice of instruments is enormous: from ideal modern color printing to full-color LED advertising screens and sign boards. The way to present advertising materials is of critical importance as well: entertainment, humor, elements of eroticism, paradoxical and unusual presentation, combination of advertising and useful social information, offer of discounts and gifts – these are just a few methods in the long list of contrivances that are meant to attract our attention. Advertisers are spending a lot of money on designing new ways to motivate people to look at the advertising messages they deliver.
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| Unusual out-of-home advertising | |
We’ll offer a list of services that some average out-of-home media company may offer its clients. Advertising on airlines and in airports: on large LED screens, diorama, LCD panels, baggage trolleys, on electrical sockets, on folders for air tickets, on turnstiles, on folding tables in the aircraft, and messages that appear outside of the windows.
- advertising in the air: on balloons, and small dirigible airships
- in cinemas: over the fringe of the screen, LCD panels in halls etc.
- on various inflatable carriers and structures
- in pedestrian zones: networks of LCD panels, on kiosks, large boards and banners
- advertising in shops: in restrooms, on cashiers’ machines, on product trolleys, on plastic bags, on coffee cups, on the floor etc.
- advertising in the stadiums: on safety barriers, on message boards, on seats, in dressing rooms, on all kinds of banners and billboards
- accompanying advertising: on telephone booths, on passenger sheds near transport stops, on light poles
- advertising at filling stations: displays on the pillars, stickers of all sorts, messages on parking barriers etc.
Other types of Out-of-Home advertising may include:
- official graffiti-walls
- drawings on pavements
- umbrellas and painted kiosks
- sculptures of sand
- advertising on ski-lifts
- on envelopes and book covers
Our conclusion: Out-of-Home advertising is an actively growing segment of the advertising market with huge potential. To utilize all the possibilities offered by the outdoor advertising, marketing specialists must be extremely well educated and creative.
