DOOH advertising, or, digital out-of-home advertising is any digitized display that you see in public. 

If you look around, you will find this almost everywhere you go. Stadiums, malls, airports, hospitals. 

The opposite of what static billboards are seen as today, digital billboards in this form of marketing may be the kind of novelty that marketers are looking for. 

According to a statistical website, the neuron, the DOOH market has been valued at $41.06 billion in 2020 and it is only expected to rise, with an estimate of $50.42 billion by 2026.

The website also has more interesting stats on the subject of visibility and DOOH. Here are some of them: 

• 49% of consumers notice a digital out-of-home advertising

• 52% of viewers notice all of the street level digitals out of-home ads

• 69% of viewers took some sort of action after viewing a DOOH (making CTAs in these digital out-of-home ads very important)

The top 3 benefits of DOOH advertisements

DOOH advertisements have several benefits because of their programmatic nature. 

The top 3 benefits of DOOH advertising are: 

• DOOH ads allow real-time messaging

• DOOH ads are dynamic ads 

• Drive more audience engagement with DOOH ads

DOOH Ads Allow Real-time Messaging 

Digital out-of-home ads can be changed easily with the help of a networked computer. For example, if you are in Mumbai, and a match is going on in the Wankhede Stadium between India and Australia, the ads can be changed according to what is happening in the match. 

There can be drumrolls every time Dhoni hits a six or a sad emoji when someone is out. 

Mc Donalds did something creative. 

They had a DOOH, which recorded the temperature, and when the temperature hit the one that they set, people got a free MC flurry! 

Check out this link to know how McDonald’s did an engaging DOOH ad campaign.

Dynamic DOOH ads

Digital out-of-home advertising has just started to realize its capabilities and the ads can be changed with respect to a lot of parameters, like recognising voice, temperature, facial expressions

Imagine getting something for free based on your facial expressions. And, on top of that, a yawn!

Douwe Egberts coffee created just that. 

They installed Digital out-of-home ads at airports, where people usually are jet-lagged and sleepy and many of them are yawning. 

The coffee brand asked its users to come in front of the digital billboard and yawn. The algorithm captured this yawn and there they got a free cup of steaming hot coffee

Check out this to see the digital out-of-home ad campaign in action.

Digital Out of Home Ads Drive More Audience Engagement

Engaging with our audience is something that we all want our brands to do, right? But, a lot of times, we don’t always get the results we want. 

The most important thing is to understand where your audience is because, in this case, the audience will be interacting with your advertisement ‘in person.’

Let’s take the example of the coffee ad mentioned above. People drink coffee to get energy and not fall asleep while working or studying. 

Now, if Douwe Egberts Coffee had decided to implant that same advertisement in a mall, it would not have been as effective right? 

They figured out exactly where people are sleepy the most (I would say company meetings if they’re boring. But we can’t advertise there anyways)

So they figured out the next best location, an airport. And their brand DOOH advertising campaign turned out to be successful.

Another example of a digital out-of-home advertisement that engaged with its audience is Coca-Cola. 

Coca-Cola created a drinkable advertisement that creates the illusion that you actually taste the campaign. Helping the audience enjoy a Coke Zero with the help of technology. 

Viewers see Coke Zero pouring into the screen of their smartphones, filling a glass, which ends up into an actual free Coke Zero that can be redeemed in big retail stores across the US.

Check out this video to see how it turned out. 

If you pay attention to the details like we do, you will notice something similar in all the above ads that I shared as examples. 

“They all give away free stuff.”

The Mc Flurry, the Coffee, the Coca-Cola.

But, in turn, these brands received massive social media coverage for free, many people interacted with the brand’s DOOH advertising, people felt valued, and all in all, it was a huge win for all of them.

In conclusion, given the flexibility of what one can promote, how they can, or whether they can change it with a few clicks, digital out-of-home advertising is slowly taking the center stage in the world of offline marketing. 

And with platforms facilitating the easy purchase of DOOH ads, it is not surprising to see that many have predicted huge markets for DOOH ads in the future years. 

While we are on this topic, a common question might that you may have is:

Is Digital Out of Home advertising better than OOH (Out of Home) advertising? 

The critical difference between the DOOH and OOH is the letter “D”, or the word digital. 

When you think of OOH ads, you immediately think of billboards. Something static. Now the major change is that digital out-of-home ads are dynamic, they are moving billboards, capturing the attention of viewers. 

The ads can be changed via a networked computer, and algorithms can be created to change the ads based on a person’s behaviour (a smile, or a yawn)

So, does this mean that DOOH ads are better than OOH ads?

We would say yes in some cases. For example, if your marketing strategy requires a programmatic element to it, then DOOH ads may be the best as compared to OOH ads.

But, if your marketing strategy or campaign is simple, or if you’re a small-sized brand, then OOH ads are the best for you as they tend to give higher ROI with less investment.

Many retail businesses & e-commerce businesses tend to do OOH advertising as it has proven to generate good ROI. 

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