The rise of digital transformation in outdoor advertising
2022-10-25 17:05:57
Across the world, out of home advertising is quickly becoming more digitally driven than ever before. Patrick Haber, Vice President, JGroup elucidates how DOOH helps serve purpose and performance for corporate branding
Digital billboards have sprung up to replace traditional billboard posters, proving that recent innovations within the technology sector have pushed advertisers to reevaluate out of home advertising strategies.
A study by eMarketer has shown that digital out of home advertising (DOOH) spending will see a sharp rise of 19.2% in 2021, as the industry is set to grow to be worth $3.84 billion by 2023. Traditional methods of advertising are far less effective than they were 20 years ago. Consumers are dulled with the constant visual flood of advertisements on their smartphones, TV screens, and streaming services.
The mere repetition of simulated messages on screens has exhausted its return on investment. Advertisers will need to facilitate several targeting vectors to truly capture audience attention and intrigue. This can be achieved by the implementation technological assets such as great website design, updated Google SEO, targeted content, and of course, outdoor advertising.
As the current pandemic continues to move us into the future, advertisers and marketers have had to implement scalable solutions such as digital transformation to adapt to the volatile market environment. In today’s digital age, more and more companies are turning to platforms that will allow them to control their ad campaigns and observe the results it generates. Platforms such as FoxPush, Digimotive and Blis help advertisers deliver cost-efficient campaigns, while amplifying their reach and impressions. Gone are the days when brands planned advertisement campaigns at high costs without analyzing where the strategy would be most effective.
This could further enable start-ups and new businesses to compete with global brands by eliminating monopolistic markets. Thanks to dynamic, digital advertising assets (DOOH), including infrastructures like digital street furniture, digital transit, digital place-based displays, and digital billboards. The digital capabilities have allowed outdoor advertising to streamline the marketing landscape. This has in turn provided a real time flexible ecosystem which has enhanced the localization and personalization of DOOH.
In 2021, I anticipate that digital advertising, especially DOOH, will make a very strong push forward as brands will begin to invest heavily in digital ads through several mediums and channels. This is mainly to monitor and understand their customer’s new movements and in turn effectively adapt to new habitual changes in their media consumption and their channels (TV, social media, etc.).
As it stands, COVID-19 has already shifted how many of us work, spend time with our families, as well as how we spend our free time – this has caused huge reverberations within the digital marketing and advertising space. This disruption has been the driving force for the massive rate of digital transformation and digitalization.
Creating massive extravagant media campaigns is now possible in a more cost-effective and timely manner, this coupled with the flexibility to dynamically switch, pause and restart a series of real-time content on the fly has contributed to more and more advertisers to shift their spending and focus on the digital landscape. Technological advancements and innovations have made OOH a quintessential medium, as speed and flexibility become the vital characteristics advertisers require during the current pandemic.
In addition to a streamlined advertisement process, brands are supplementing the digital sphere with enhanced storytelling techniques. Corporate branding is increasingly becoming more focused with products that are embedded with a story. This is because the human mind is designed to latch on to narratives and cohesion, ultimately retaining an imprint of products with a compelling context. With the aid of digital transformation, DOOH advertising is embracing the concept by creating and designing ads in the format of episodes on the fly. Managing moment to moment-based storytelling in 10 and 5-second durations enables brands gain a huge competitive edge over their competitors. Specialized sensors, facial recognition software, and other smart features will create a digital milieu specifically target each market audience segment separately.
Consumers have also been interacting with productions differently in recent years. As sports viewers, for example, have started to seek an online or social media platform-based viewing experience, the introduction of cloud-based “production-as-a-service” offers have been vital to sports and esports alike. Take Twitch, for instance, the platform offers a free format similar to YouTube but with a focus on live streaming, which YouTube only allows for channels with a large enough following. Giving content creators access to the platform’s live streaming capabilities has created a healthy and steady growth of creators and viewers alike. Furthermore, cloud-based video production tools can be accessed anywhere, at any time, on almost any device. In the current business climate, video teams can work from the most optimal location for them and collaborate effectively across the world enabling businesses to promote a positive company culture while looking after employees.
In terms of emerging technologies, virtual and augmented reality solutions are blurring the boundaries between the real and virtual worlds. I believe this will add new dimensions for advertisement within the digital realm, with a focus on a personalized interaction and engagement level. New digital campaigns will be facilitated by these technologies and add a new level of trust, accountability, and most importantly – transparency.