So what is digital Out of Home advertising? Put simply, digital screens outside or ‘Out of Home’.
Digital bus shelter advertising, screens in pubs, interactive posters that recognize facial expressions, 3D billboards, lightboxes that change colour… the opportunities are endless and every week brings new developments in the digital Out of Home space.
You may think this is out of your budget and only open to global brands. But not true. We work with independent, local, and small and medium sized businesses every day. We’ve even had individuals book our digital sites for as little as one hour for a marriage proposal on Valentine’s Day.
So how can you make the most of digital Out of Home?
1) Location, location, location. Many of our advertisers are now running different copy depending on the location. This gives them the adaptability to reference the town/city they are targeting. TSB ran a contextual campaign that involved over 150 creatives. To demonstrate their commitment to Banking for Britain, TSB used Adshel Live to deliver a dynamic location and daypart relevant campaign. Three creatives (morning, afternoon and evening) ran per city, referencing location and illustrating the daypart.
2) Tighter targeting. Digital Out of Home advertising is incredibly flexible, particularly in terms of timings. You can choose to display your advert more frequently at particular times of day. Schedule your ads for lunch hours or at the end of the working day if you want to drive shoppers to a website, or during school drop off and collection periods if you want to be noticed by parents. You can also tailor the timing of your advert according to seasonality, ramping up your exposure during key events or during busy periods.
3) Environmental intelligence. Weather getting warmer? Pollen count higher than expected? If factors like these represent opportunities for your company – perhaps you’re selling ice cream, or antihistamines – then your digital Out of Home advertising can be tailored to respond. The results from this kind of agile, responsive strategy can be truly fantastic.
4) Seasonality: Last Christmas, Curry’s PC World ran a campaign linked with social media. People could send in a Tweet detailing what they would like for Christmas, and hand select the digital bus shelters where the ad would appear. This created great engagement for the brands, through personalisation at scale during the festive period.


5) Dynamic content. Digital billboards support video and interactive content – and this is where Out of Home advertising can truly engage. Whatever your sector, video and dynamic advertising will have something creative to offer you that can help you stand out from the crowd. In April 2016 we invited our clients to take part in an April Fools’ campaign that showed ads switching from the ‘joke’ to the reveal within twelve hours. You can see some of the ideas our clients came up with here, including a TV channel just for hipsters, a deodorant for the left side of your body, and a McDonalds on the moon!
Here at Clear Channel, our vision is to Create the Future of Media, Out of Home, and we’d love to talk you about how we can help you to create some digital marketing magic for your business.
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By Mark Mahoney, SME Marketing Manager, Clear Channel UK
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