OOH bounces back post-covid-19

Digital advertising gripped the audience for the longest time during the outbreak of covid-19. The restrictions to move out and nation-wide lockdown forced people to spend most of their time using digital screens. These circumstances accelerated digital advertising while slowing down the out-of-home advertising owing to movement restriction. However, things are back-to- normal and people are free of covid-19 norms. The audience is out and about and experiencing life with new perspective after 2 years of lull. The post-covid-19 scenario has unleashed the power of OOH by motivating the audience to touch, feel and experiencing them physically rather than visualizing it on the digital screen.

The major challenges that digital advertising is facing are:

• Over-intrusion: The data-driven advertising chases the audience like wild-fire. If you visit one shopping website for a product you will be drained by ad popping in everywhere and all the time on your screen. This intrusion causes irritation thereby demotivating the audience to even have a look at the digital ad. They ultimately block the ads to keep the advertisers away.
• Lifestyle changes: Covid-19 has already made people addicted to their screens and in order to turn to healthier lifestyle, people are now taking in firm actions to reduce their screen times. Digital-wellbeing apps and app settings help the audience to restrict their screen time as a step towards healthy lifestyle.
• Feel it: The audience have witnessed a scenario where touching and feeling things was restricted for almost 2 years and therefore, audience now look for opportunities to feel and experience things by themselves before making purchase. The excitement to shop after trying and experiencing things is at peak after covid-19.
• Digital fatigue: Binge watching, digital shopping etc. was received in full throttle during the on-set of covid-19 but now the audience is facing digital fatigue. It is a situation where people get mentally exhausted due to intense screen time.

All these factors have led the advertisers to focus their advertising strategies more on out-of-home media then on digital advertising alone.

How OOH advertising proving to be a trustworthy investment for advertisers?

• According to the reports OOH advertising is expected to cross $40.42 billion at 9% of CAGR in 2026.
• Reports conducted by OneScreen.ai also revealed that approximately 96% of advertisers gained satisfactory or very satisfactory ROI from OOH marketing campaigns.
• OOH advertising raises not only brand awareness but also tries to capture new audiences.
• It increases brand recognition and also try to maximize brand reach by exploring new audience demographics.

What are the places where OOH work effectively?

• Increasing air travel makes airport routes and airport itself a lucrative OOH advertising site.
• As there are no restrictions for public events as there were during covid-19, concerts and other public events make up for highly beneficial OOH advertising sites.
• Restaurants are also one of the most appropriate sites for OOH advertising.

 Which OOH advertising format shall the advertisers choose?

The advertisers can choose a mix of traditional OOH and digital OOH (DOOH) to gain maximum ROI from their advertising campaign. Traditional OOH options include static billboards, hoardings and vehicle ads while the digital OOH ads include digital screens ads, programmatic ads etc.

Billboards beat every other mode of OOH advertising when it comes to ROI. They are the one gaining highest ROI as compared to other formats of OOH ads.

Challenges with OOH advertising

• It is difficult to find right location for the ad.
• Chalking out details for executing an OOH ad campaign is confusing and exhausting.
• It is difficult to find appropriate outdoor advertising company for buying ad space.
• It is difficult to measure the tangible impact of the OOH ad campaign.

OOH Stands as a sure-shot winner

With few challenges faced, OOH still is a sure shot winner when it comes to creating brand awareness, maximizing ad exposure, creating high brand recall and acquiring new customers. Advertisers find it highly beneficial to put both digital and traditional OOH at work to gain maximum ROI from their outdoor ad campaigns. Digital fatigue and change customer behavior to gain live experiences have pushed the growth of OOH advertising.