What’s hot, what’s not in OOH

by carly_mchugh | 9 April 2024 4:43 pm

By Carly McHugh

In the world of out-of-home (OOH) advertising, innovation is the foundation for success. As a result, it is important for brands to keep their fingers on the pulse of the market, and continuously adapt to the needs and preferences of consumers, to ensure they stay ahead of their competitors.

In the first few months of the new year, the landscape of OOH advertising has already seen a transformation, driven by technological advancements, shifting consumer behaviours, and the relentless pursuit of audience engagement.

With the role of data becoming even more crucial, advertisers are seeking robust metrics to accurately evaluate the effectiveness of their OOH campaigns. This also involves navigating the complexities of audience movement patterns while staying attuned to evolving trends.

For greater insight into today’s ever-changing OOH market, Sign Media Canada spoke to Scott Mitchell, managing director for Canada at Vistar Media. He revealed some of the trends already gaining traction in 2024, as well as emerging strategies and the pivotal role of data and measurement in shaping the future of the industry.

Sign Media Canada (SMC): What are some of the “ins” and “outs” you foresee for marketers this year?

Scott Mitchell (SM): The “ins” are following along some of the tailwinds we started to see pick up in 2023, looking into 2024. One that’s top of mind is putting creative at the forefront. When we think of out-of-home (OOH), a lot of the time, the creative is dull—maybe it hasn’t been created for the OOH channel. Now, what we’re starting to see is the opportunity to dust off the old thoughts about what OOH creative is and infuse it with this new approach, to have a meaningful, driven strategy. It’s reminding marketers of the power of OOH and having dynamic creative, and all of these things that maybe weren’t leaned into as heavily in the past.

In 2024, we’re seeing brands really engaging the OOH channel through their creative. For example, you can now have specific creative that can be updated to say, “The closest store is 1 km (0.6 mi) that way,” or enabled to integrate personalized messaging and provide the opportunity to serve an ad at the right moment, to resonate with the consumer. It’s an engaging way to not only help differentiate your brand, but also incorporate different messaging. This is a really big topic so far this year.

SMC: Which upcoming trends are likely to make the biggest influence on the advertising industry, in terms of standing out and connecting with target audiences?

SM: Creative, for sure, and utilizing it in the right way. A core part to that is using data to better target and understand audience movement patterns, as well as reach them at the right time, in the right place. If we think about how marketers want to engage consumers in the OOH space, using data to do so more effectively and then pairing it with dynamic creative or purpose-driven OOH campaigns is a really good combination.

The second part is thoughtful measurement. With OOH, marketers are always faced with understanding whether their investment into a channel paid off, they hit the key performance indicators (KPIs) they were going for, or they achieved the goals they were looking for. With measurement, we can now help marketers understand if their investment was actually meaningful.

As an asterisk, OOH is just one piece of the pie for a marketer’s entire approach to reaching audiences or their consumers. It isn’t the be-all and end-all, but the tools that are now available allow marketers to understand the impact OOH brings as it ladders up to the other parts of their media buys. Thoughtful measurement is always there, and it includes elements such as brand lift studies, foot traffic studies, and understanding purchase intent and purchaser consideration, and starting to incorporate them as an almost necessary add-on to any type of OOH campaign.

OOH is probably one of the oldest mediums, but something that’s been emerging in the last couple of years—which we saw begin around 2020 or so—is retail media. When people think of OOH, they usually think of billboards. However, it’s so much more. OOH has the ability to reach audiences in the gym, in residential buildings, in office buildings, and, of course, now this emergence in retail media.

Retail is changing the perspective. OOH advertising is now giving marketers the opportunity to reach consumers at key point-of-sale (POS) locations. Whether you’re a busy mom and you’re shopping for your family, or you’re on a lunch break, or you’re running through the grocery store or a convenience store, retail media is growing, and it’s providing opportunities to reach people in key moments that may not usually be associated with OOH. It’s exciting to see this new network crop up, and for it to be a part of the channel.

SMC: How do you see the role of data evolving in advertising, and what challenges and opportunities does this present for brands and campaigns?

SM: From an OOH lens, being able to better understand how to reach your audiences is probably the key thing, along with what data provides for marketers. For example, in the online space, if you use a cookie, it provides advertisers with the opportunity to serve an ad to someone who is a sports enthusiast. In OOH, you don’t have that one-to-one relationship. It’s a one-to-many relationship, with the opportunity to effectively reach audiences at the right time, and in the right space. Data provides marketers with a more effective approach to delivering those messages at those key moments.

Now, if we take it a step further and think of how data is generally used by marketers to power their entire marketing plans, OOH used to be a channel that was quite siloed. It had to be booked or planned with multiple phone calls, using individual publishers’ or media owners’ data sources. There wasn’t one unified way of planning an entire campaign with one set of data and one definition. If we think of how the online space has adopted data, in terms of it being the thread that’s pulling together the rest of their marketing plans, OOH was left out of it.

What we’re seeing now—which has been one of the core pillars to driving adoption in the programmatic digital out-of-home (pDOOH) space—is it’s given marketers the opportunity to use one set of data, one definition of data, and apply it across the channels they want to include in their marketing efforts, with OOH being one of them. Therefore, it’s really important for them to have the opportunity to establish some continuity, to provide a better understanding of the audiences they’re targeting, and to bring a consolidated viewpoint that’s being powered by a data source they trust.

SMC: How will recent technological advancements and consumer behaviours influence the advertising landscape in 2024? What strategies should marketers adopt to stay ahead in this dynamic environment?

SM: The exciting thing about technology is it means we’re changing. If it continues to evolve, particularly in the OOH space, it means we’re doing something right. A number of different companies and partners are all adding benefits to the digital out-of-home (DOOH) space and the OOH space to help enhance it. What will continue is the use of data and measurement, along with the constant advancements in how creative can speak to the channel. Marketers won’t shy away from leaning into some of the technologies they’re currently using, but they will want to have an ongoing basis which allows them to understand if the dollars they’re investing into their channels are effective, where they’re going from a transparency standpoint, and measure through quantifiable results whether their investments are moving the needle on the back end. The idea of a siloed, channelled approach is almost antiquated, and it’s not a representation of what marketers are looking to do—which is bring more of an omnichannel lens to how they think of their consumers, and make sure they have the right tools at their disposal to better reach them, talk to them, and try to hit their KPIs.

SMC: Targeting was a key focus in the advertising sphere last year, including weather-based and location-specific targeting. Will it continue in 2024?

SM: Absolutely. It really plays into the ability to reach consumers in the most effective means. If you think of OOH’s role and the approach we take to it—which is helping marketers continue to bring the benefits they’ve seen from the online space, from a data and a targeting perspective, and translating it to extend into OOH—it’s still one of the most effective ways to understand who your audiences are and how you can reach them more effectively.

SMC: Is there anything else you would like to add regarding the changing landscape of the advertising industry, or how today’s trends will carry throughout the year and beyond?

SM: If the core capabilities of OOH and pDOOH are automation, data, and measurement, the next iteration is the creative canvas and allowing marketers to put creative at the forefront of their OOH marketing campaigns, which is going to be really important. Another key focus is removing the siloed approach that hasn’t really enabled them to take full advantage of software and instead promoting an omnichannel approach, where OOH can now be included to work in conjunction with their other plans.  

Source URL: https://www.signmedia.ca/whats-hot-whats-not-in-ooh/

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