Out-of-Home advertising One of the oldest forms of advertising, today the OOH industry is called to pay a major role in the everyday lives of a community members.
The pandemic has set a turning point for the advertising industry as a whole, with the out-of-home to be highly penalized due to social distancing. Brands and advertisers had to reschedule their promotional outdoor plans and both the traditional OOH and DOOH models have faced challenges, unseen before. Life is though stronger than anything else and the comeback to a new normality – thanks to the vaccination plans speedly accelerating in many Countries – will see people walking once more in the city centers and suburbs allowing a back-to-ads for the advertising industry pros.

It is important to take into account that consumers are today much smarter and well informed than they were just 10 years ago, even 2 years ago. They’ve been challenged to face a hard reality and they are willing to be surprised by brands but to be respected at the same time in their deepest human values. No trust, no gain!

How can advertisers make the difference in such a new community and advertising scenario?
Which tech innovations will be able to sustain their advertising plans?

Technology has taken its part in accelerating many social and relational processes, changing the human habits and preferences very quickly. Mobile targeting, social media networks have acquainted them to be exposed to only what they really want. The average individual is now aware of the importance of being considered ‘unique’ and then requires to live an ad experience in line with his own personal preferences and feeling. Brands and advertisers will then need in the future to seriously consider technology and customer preferences in their advertising models and plans. This is a necessity both for keeping the advertising industry alive and for matching with the expectations of every indivual.

Here are 5 key points that we’ve pointed out to help match the advertising industry needs and those of the ads consumers.

1. Outdoor Advertising must be digitally-led and highly creative
Nowadays, consumers are used to high quality screens and outdoor displays. If it’s non-sense moving back from this habit, then the only possible thing that can be done is investing in reaching – and why not, even setting – always better and higher quality standards in the selection or manufacturing of outdoor screens.
DOOH screens allow run multiple digital outdoor advertisements on a single screen. Here, storytelling and creativity play a relevant role as they allow to convey the right message at the right time in the right place with highly effective campaigns, flexibly planned and based on mesurable data
Brands with a compelling story to relate to and impactful creativity are likely to impact subconsciously on final users.

The strategic use of the two does not only attract the consumers, it can fidelize them. Behind ads there are human minds creating a better present or a dream… target users know this and this is what they appreciate the most! Brands ads can touch the souls of people, every soul in a different way. Here is where content plus visual storytelling assumes an important role: it’s not just telling a story, it’s the full story itself. Only when the story is authentic the user can really connect with it and trust it.

2. Opportunities come from Technology
Airports, waiting areas, public transport and playgrounds are busy public areas where advertisers invest the most. In the post-pandemic world, with the back to normality, advertisements will be present once again where people are. How can it be possibile to reach every single consumer in these contexts? Technology with its latest innovations has broadened the scope of placements of outdoor advertisements, particularly digital advertisements. The growing internet penetration has led to the expansion of digital and internet-based advertising platforms across the globe. Advancements in technology, such as improved IoT connectivity, near field communication, artificial intelligence (AI), and beacons, have encouraged creativity in the DOOH industry. Advertisers can now focus on developing screens that deliver contextually relevant, intelligent and real-time content.

Programmatic platforms play a relevant role too allowing the planning and management of contents along the many screens distributed in the territory. Programmatic, compared to traditional DOOH, guarantees all these things using the same logic and KPIs as web advertising – and this is what differentiates it.

According to the latest ‘Digital OOH Advertising Market: Global Industry Trends, Share, Size, Growth, Opportunity and Forecast 2021-2026’ report the global digital-out-of-home advertising market to reach a value of US$ 50.42 Billion by 2026, exhibiting a CAGR of 3.58% during 2021-2026.

3. Audience matters
The future scenario will see advertisements showing not only descriptions about a particular product or service, but also predicting the user profile of those who interacted with it. This feat is more frequently accomplished by the use of sensors, facial recognition software, and other AI smart features.
The audience measurement topic becomes then extremely relevant in this as the monitoring and analysis of ooh advertising results is key for defining the success of a campaign and for evaluating the ROI for advertisers.

4. Outdoor Advertising and Mobile meet
Due to social distance, in the last months consumers have been able to test in their daily lives the opportunity to positively combine physical and digital. Proximity strategies will lead the step to a more structured integration of mobile and outdoor technologies to reduce the gap between potential customers and brand advertisements and share valuable data in real-time with the brands. With the use of programmatic platforms the possibility to include and harmonise both outdoor and personal screens in the campaign grows. When these two mediums are combined, the impact is in fact higher, adding new value to their personal experience of the brands.

5. Sharing the same set of values brings to success
Only by being authentic and transparent brands can do long-term business. Reliable and trustful brands are required today by the consumers with fake news or hollow promises increasingly unwelcomed. Sustainability and carefullness towards the audience values and beliefs are fundamental. Last, coherence is another aspect consumers will take in large account: out of home /DOOH ads must be in sync with social and digital ads, and mainly with the brands core values.