Marketers consider OOH advertising as one of the most effective methods of capturing audience attention and increasing sales.
Such trend perceptions may convince your business to take up this popular marketing solution.
Yet, OOH ads need to be creative and distinguish themselves from the rest for them to be effective.
For this reason, we’ve compiled this article that outlines 5 very creative ways to use OOH advertising so that you can get ideas and inspiration for your next OOH campaign.
- Try out different formats
What’s amazing about OOH advertising is that there are a lot of opportunities to be creative. One of the creative possibilities stands in playing with formats and choosing the one that you think might potentially benefit your company the most.
Here are some examples of some of the OOH ad formats most used:
- Roadside screens. In this case, large format digital screens are placed along the sides of roads in order to attract the maximum number of people. Usually, they are placed in high-traffic locations such as crossroads, highways, service stations, etc.
- Billboards. Billboards are large outdoor advertisements commonly used by businesses to promote brands or new products. Billboards are typically placed in highly trafficked areas, such as along highways and in cities.
- Posters. Using poster advertising can help you reach a wider market and concentrate your message in highly targeted areas. Almost any venue can display posters; local shops, dining venues, hotels, events, etc.
- Wallscapes. Wallscapes are advertisements attached to or painted on walls. They are the largest kind of out of home advertising you can find. They are usually found in areas with high traffic counts.
- Tell a story with your OOH ad
If you’re going to apply OOH advertising, it is surely because you have something to communicate to your audience and want them to take a specific action.
In order for this to happen, you need to clearly state the purpose of your ad. However, this shouldn’t sound robotic or too promotional, otherwise people will get bored of it and won’t even stop by.
Instead, you should capture the attention of people driving or walking around town. As most of them are just of passage and often in a rush, you should be able to be as concise as possible and capture their attention within seconds.
A single placement can make storytelling difficult. However, you can still get creative. Brands use OOH to tell comprehensive stories, either by sequentially displaying the messages on multiple signs in the same location or by changing the messages periodically throughout the campaign.
Furthermore, you should also use words that evoke curiosity, mystery, or humour, such as innuendoes and wordplays.
- Create a striking design that reflects the identity of your brand
The most important aspect of an OOH ad is its design. In the absence of standing out from other advertisements, chances for your OOH campaign to succeed decrease dramatically.
This is why you should create a unique design that catches your audience’s attention.
To accomplish this, you can:
- Use vibrant colours
- Develop a design that reflects your brand identity
- Use high-quality, meaningful images
- Ensure the ad generates digital buzz
If you want to make the most out of your OOH campaign, you should aim to make your spot viral. You can achieve this by making it shareable. To put it another way, you must make people want to interact with it or take a picture to share on their social media accounts.
Perhaps you should include a hashtag in your ad, or create a design or message that is unique and worth sharing. In addition, you can leave a sense of mystery while hinting at great things to come.
- Make your OOH ad interactive
You might not be able to attract and hold the interest of your target audience by merely displaying your ad on a screen.
In this case, you may want to enhance your advertisement’s sense of originality and engagement by, for example, making it interactive.
For instance, you can encourage people to scan QR codes to get coupons or promo codes, or you can ask them to visit your website from a mobile device and display their actions on a billboard.
Conclusions
In OOH advertising, you have a lot of room for creativity and can experiment with different formats, designs, and copy.
Testing different creative methods will help you find the right mix and combination that will work best for your business and will generate the best results in terms of shares and sales.
