For the past several years, out of home advertising (OOH) has been a hotbed of innovation, embracing the rapidly changing demands of the digital age while continuing to delight consumers and broaden the medium’s appeal to advertisers. With consumers spending 70 percent of waking hours outside the home, and more than 90 percent of purchases still made in the physical world, OOH is more relevant than ever. Unlike all other traditional media, the $7 billion OOH industry has realized 25 consecutive quarters of growth since the recession. From Twitter to the World Series to Snapchat the power of OOH is helping brands cut through the clutter and make a difference in today’s fractured media environment.
Thanks to its unparalleled creative canvas, OOH is not only delivering an impactful brand message in its own right, but also integrating well with other mediums. OOH has an unmatched ability to prime the impact of digital and mobile marketing in the physical world, amplifying and extending a brand’s impact in an increasingly mobile culture. In a time when so many marketers are struggling with digital’s issues of fraud, viewability and transparency, OOH is an un-skippable, “bot-free” medium.
With these trends in mind, the OOH industry recently developed a new five-year plan to reinforce the power of OOH advertising as a core mediabuy alongside mobile, social and digital advertising. The plan was developed under the leadership of the industry’s trade association, The Outdoor Advertising Association of America (OAAA), along with contributions from a team of industry leaders. It presents the medium’s value proposition, identifies attributes that distinguish OOH and creates a “to-do” list of objectives the industry needs to accomplish in order to continue to grow. Using the tagline “OOH. Real. Powerful. Advertising.” the industry is reinforcing the medium’s strengths and setting a path for continued growth and relevance.
The plan’s value proposition makes the simple case for OOH’s unique impact.
In today’s world of clicks, likes and page views, OOH advertising is a core media buy, because OOH is more creatively impactful, more contextually relevant and more of a media amplifier than ever before. OOH is the real thing. It can’t be blocked, skipped or viewed by bots. OOH is always on, surrounding and immersing audiences with real, powerful advertising, wherever consumers live, work, travel, shop and play.
By highlighting the core attributes that differentiate OOH — creative impact, contextual relevance, ubiquity, data-driven connectivity, accountability, innovation and its power to amplify other mediums — the industry aims to reinforce the vital role that OOH plays in today’s increasingly fragmented, mobile-driven media landscape.
Moving forward, the OOH industry has also identified five priorities critical to reinforcing its role as a core media buy:
- Emphasize OOH’s unique ability to use data to connect with specific audiences in contextually relevant locations along the path to purchase;
- Highlight the unique and unmatched creative potential of OOH, and its big, bold, beautiful storytelling canvas;
- Continue to offer innovations that advertisers big and small can easily implement and deploy at scale;
- In partnership with the industry’s OOH media specialist agencies, tell the story of OOH to a broad group of marketers, creatives and media planners in order to integrate the medium more fully into the broader advertising ecosystem.
- Above all, deliver to our customers measurable solutions and proven results.
Learn more about OOH advertising and its new brand positioning at www.oaaa.org.
Dan Levi is chief marketing officer at Clear Channel Outdoor and served on the Out of Home Brand Positioning Committee of the Outdoor Advertising Association of America. This committee was also comprised of Don Allman, Intersection; Jean-Luc Decaux, JCDecaux North America; Kevin Gleason, Adams + Fairway Outdoor Advertising; Jeremy Male, Outfront Media; Lee Rafkin, Rafkin & Company; William Reagan, Reagan Outdoor Advertising; Sean Reilly, Lamar Advertising Company; Jodi Senese, Outfront Media, and Scott Wells, Clear Channel Outdoor.
Originally published in MediaVillage.
Modified: 1 year