Out-of-home advertising collects various forms of advertising that all take place away from the home. They’re typically focused on actual physical adverts – this includes any of the following:
- Posters
- Billboards
- Digital screens
- Signage
As a consequence, most OOH advertising campaigns focus on one clear goal: broadening your reach. Businesses use it to push their brand out into the big, wide world, ensuring more people become aware of it. Following that line of thinking, it stands to reason that you want to position your adverts in locations that allow you to generate as much reach as possible.
Where are the best places to do this?
Airports
According to Airport Adverts, over 4.5 billion people travel by plane every year. More importantly, people stay within airports for an average of 90 minutes – and 80% of passengers take notice of airport advertising.
In terms of reach, this is one of the best ways to get your message out there to a massive number of people every single day. It’s also excellent when you think about engagement, which can’t be said for a lot of the locations on this list. Because so many passengers spend over an hour waiting around at the airport, they are more likely to spot posters or other forms of advertising. They’re also bored, meaning there’s a higher chance they will loop up what’s being advertised – or take the time to scan a QR code.
A series of ads across busy airports can make your brand a household name very quickly. It can also be a clever way of directing more traffic to your website or increasing searches for your business online.
Public Transport Systems
How many people take trains, subways or buses every day? The figures are almost impossible to collate because they’re so vast. Consequently, public transport systems will always be one of the best ways to generate reach from OOH advertising. You see so much footfall walking past your adverts; there’s a non-zero per cent chance that someone takes notice.
The beauty of public transport systems is that they’ve been designed to accommodate so many forms of advertising:
- Create large billboard ads to go opposite the platforms at train stations or on the London Underground
- Pay for poster adverts or ads on digital screens at bus stops
- Get smaller adverts to go above the seats on the tube
- Get even smaller adverts to go on the back of seats on the train
- Invest in large bus adverts to emblazon the side of a bus and be seen by even more consumers
You can undoubtedly add more things to this list that demonstrate the point even further. Public transport systems are perfect for an OOH advertising campaign, particularly when you’re trying to increase your reach within local markets. It rivals local SEO in its efficacy, and a few adverts at train stations or local bus stops will spread the word and make people notice your business.
Major Road Networks
Billboard adverts at the side of major road networks will always be popular because of how many people drive by them every day. The one thing to say about this type of OOH advertising is that it’s purely reach-based. You don’t want to do anything other than get your brand into people’s subconscious minds.
A driver can’t stop to read your billboard on the motorway, so keep the actual content brief. It needs to be simple and punchy, so it gets their attention without being overly distracting. The critical thing here is that the same people end up seeing your advert every day. Drivers on their way to and from work see it, truck drivers doing their daily route see it, and so on.
Millions of people will see your billboard every single day, so when the time comes for them to look into something related to your company, your brand will be the first they think about.
Busy High Streets & Shopping Centres
A high street or city centre with lots of foot traffic will be a great place for out-of-home advertising. Much like public transport stations, you’ve got a fleet of advertising formats to choose from:
- Digital screens
- Signage
- Billbloards
- Street posters
Your reach here is incredible because you’ve got people wandering around on their way to work, school, college, university, to the shops, etc. Loads of people will see your adverts – but there’s also a slight element of interaction involved. You can use adverts to direct foot traffic to your physical location, if you have one.
You can also call upon QR codes on posters or digital screens for people to scan as they’re walking around. Consumers are more likely to engage with this type of interactive advert on a high street because they’re just going about their day, rather than being in a rush.
All of the same can be said for shopping centres, too. In this case, if you own a shop within a shopping centre, adverts on digital signs or posters can be used to promote products or special offers, directing even more people through your doors.
University Campuses
While you won’t see as much footfall through university campuses as anywhere else on this list, they are fantastic at increasing your reach within a target demographic. A university will mainly collect people between the ages of 18 and 25, one of the core audience groups. As a result, any brand that targets this part of the population would be a fool not to establish some adverts here.
It is a rare case where OOH advertising actually lets you zero in on your target demographic. Your brand gains more exposure, but it also gains exposure within a group of people who are most likely to engage with it.
Out-of-home advertising only works when you place your adverts in places people will see. You need to pick locations with a lot of traffic in one way or another. The five options on this list are the best of the best and they give you opportunities to spread the word.
Featured Image Source
