Making An Impact

Latest available figures show year-on-year growth of about 8.5% and outdoor accounts for around 5.5% of all advertising spending in the UK. Easily the top categories are entertainment, telecoms and personal finance. Following on are alcoholic drinks, food and travel/transport.

A vast out-of-home (OOH) advertising choice is available. Everything from large format roadside billboards and high impact banners to the use of train stations, bus shelters, taxi doors, aerial displays, sports stadia and shopping centres, with a mass of media in between. More and more digital options are popping up. Essentially, it all falls into four sectors – roadside, transport, retail and leisure.

Consumers can be reached as soon as they step through the front doorway, right up to their point of purchase. Research has pointed to a majority of adults agreeing that billboards make brands stand out for them and nearly as many said that posters give them something pleasing to look at when they are out and about.

NEW IDEAS

What is more, standards continue to improve and new ideas are flooding across this important promotional landscape.

Without doubt, the future of outdoor advertising is digital. Today’s technology can put screens of cinema proportions in places where paste-up posters used to be. Dynamic movement looks stunningly more compelling than a flat image. More and more, the public is being invited to share and interact through mobile devices. Smart outdoor advertising, combined with mobile connectivity, is revolutionising the spaces in which we move.

Screens offer the capability to change and update information instantly while containing arresting messages. And they are always on. There’s no getting away from them: no switching off, no zapping.

Traditional or digital, it is hard to equal outdoor advertising as a flexible communications tool, with its high reach, frequency and retention. Also, it overcomes so many of the barriers encountered by other techniques.

Only the subscribers will see your magazine or newspaper advertisement. Direct mailings are costly and liable to immediate vertical filing. Television and radio require the target to continue to watch or listen to the commercials rather than switch over or off. Many Internet pop-ups and mobile messages are too intrusive and provoke annoyance.

Outdoor delivers viewers: those people spending considerable time traveling in their vehicles and on public transport. Often, outdoor is the final reminder of a brand name, just before the point of service. Moreover, advert avoidance is not an issue with outdoor.

REPEAT EXPOSURE

Efficiency levels are outstanding. When it comes to generating repeat exposure, research shows OOH to be the most penetrative per thousand viewers. It is big, bold and dynamic. What is more, it can offer constant exposure – seven days per week of emblazoning your message.

Nothing in advertising is a panacea, of course. You will need expert advice on which outdoor method to use, where and when. Encouragingly, the creative opportunity for advertisers and their agencies are immense and getting more plentiful and better in quality all of the time.

With thought, care, application and a thick layer of creativity, outdoor advertising could be your number one persuasion route to new business. It will get you noticed, for sure.

Never before have brand marketers and creatives had so much opportunity to communicate with their target marketplace and beyond.

That will continue to grow within the burgeoning arena of the Internet. Soon, living in the real world will entail being connected to the online world at all times in some respect.

Asking the public what they think and how they react will become more and more important. Together with technology and connectivity, this will help to enhance what’s already there and mean that outdoor advertising continues to swell in positive pay-back attributes.

Return to MARKETING INSIGHT BLOGS or go to MAKING CONTACT