What is outdoor advertising?

What is the name of that advertising you see when you leave your house, when you go to work or when you travel to the airport or train station?

All the advertising you find outside of home (not on your computer, TV, and traditional mass media) is defined as OOH, an acronym for Out Of Home, meaning outdoor advertising.

In simple terms, it's the classic billboarding which has now evolved into very advanced and unscrupulous ways of effective and highly creative communication.

Let's discover the types of OOH advertisement (we'll talk about DOOH and SOOH) and we will also analyze some magnificent examples of outdoor advertising.

What would New York be like without the mega digital billboards of the world's big brands?

Without a doubt, outdoor advertising is now a part of our cities.

The OOH, embraces many types of advertising: from posters on billboards, large displays of global brands to rotors and mupis.

Yes, there are indeed many strange terms. Let's discover them together!

The Types of OOH

• Outdoor advertising for buses and subways: Mupi: this type of outdoor advertising is characterized by backlighting that allows the content of the billboard to be visible even at night. It is mainly used for bus and subway stops.
• The evolved and functional billboards, the rotors: a rotor is defined as scrolling signage. Those external installations that display different types of advertising. Same board but different advertisements.

New types of outdoor advertising: DOOH and SOOH

To these more classic types, other new and innovative ones are added.

We are talking about a new acronym..yes another one! The DOOH (Digital Out Of Home).

This new type of outdoor advertising encompasses all those forms of advertisement that leverage new digital technologies.

Examples include the large LED displays in New York that showcase brand commercials on massive formats thanks to the grandeur of skyscrapers.

An even more advanced form of DOOH (Digital Out Of Home) is SOOH (Smart Out Of Home), which is now emerging forcefully.

We're talking about the use of multi-digital platforms that interact with the user through bluetooth, QR codes, and proximity marketing.

Examples are targeted advertisements seen on tablets used for bike sharing or similar initiatives. 

These tools, during registration, ask users for information and in return for the service, they will also receive targeted advertising during its use.

To understand the significance of such advanced advertising, here's an important figure.

In 2017, DOOH was already worth $13 billion and it is estimated that by 2025 this figure will increase to $35 billion!

Examples of brilliant OOH campaigns: McDonald’s and Uber

The new advertising campaigns based on OOH are the result of ingenious unconventional communications, guerrilla marketing, and ambient marketing. We have extensively discussed this in the guerrilla marketing campaigns of Netflix!

An example that helps us understand the potential of DOOH, is a McDonald's outdoor advertising campaign.

The fast food giant has always had a futuristic vision for its stores and communication.

A truly innovative advertisement has recently appeared that leverages gyroscope technologies and weather sensors. This particular display allows for different promotional content to be shown depending on the weather conditions.

Every temperature has a different Iced Frappé!

Nothing to say, really brilliant!

Also Uber is at the forefront in the world of DOOH advertisement.

An initiative in collaboration with MEELOO Advertisement is to respond to an increasingly common problem among users who use ride-hailing services.

Recharging smartphones and other devices that run out of power quickly!

The Uber user will be able to charge their device but will have to watch the advertising (which is also targeted based on their purchasing behavior) visible through the LED screen placed behind the driver's headrest.