As memories of the pandemic recede from its perigee, the articles that declared the death of out-of-home (OOH) media appear ever less relevant and more shortsighted than when they first appeared.
With the drivers of such diktats of doom now in significant reverse, and even more so in APAC – where in some markets, the “work-from-home” phenomenon barely even happened, or home or cultural circumstances accelerated the reversal – the future of OOH media has never looked more promising.
In APAC, with the increasing urbanization, digitization, and accelerating technological innovation of consumers, OOH is evolving into a channel that is able to communicate brand messages faster, more effectively, and with greater flexibility than in the past, thanks to its ability to garner attention and drive greater ROI benefit.
OOH ads are also taking on an accountability not previously seen, thanks to new, cost-efficient approaches to measurement. This means we are seeing exceptional growth in this space, with the APAC market expected to hit US$18 billion by 2028, per a projection from the market research group IMARC.
“When utilized in the right way, OOH, and now DOOH (digital OOH) can be seen as event marketing.”
As shown in research from Route, OOH provides the greatest viewability of all media types, even exceeding online, which is often regarded as the most personal medium for brand communications.
As consistently demonstrated in research by LUMEN and Neuro-Insight, when evaluated based on attention minutes, OOH ads significantly outperform other formats, highlighting the difference between viewability and actual viewing.
When utilized in the right way, OOH, and now DOOH (digital OOH) can be seen as event marketing. Take, for example, Nike’s 2022 Air Max 3D billboard in Tokyo’s Shinjuku, which took the space that was typically home to the Shinjuku cat, a larger-than-life cat who interacted with commuters and passersby, and turned it into an exhibition for Nike featuring different Air Max designs and customized colors.
Another key opportunity in APAC for OOH is with transport media. Here, approaches diverge and differ across markets. For instance, in Singapore, near-permanent and (some might argue) almost-retro executions have emerged, with OOH giant Moove Media building large 3D solutions on the tops of buses: piles of Amazon boxes for Prime, spectacular birds for the new bird park, and half-sized soldiers for an army recruitment drive.
Although such ads are attention-grabbing, the buses run a fixed route and offer no flexibility for time of day or location.
“Another key opportunity in APAC for OOH is with transport media. Here, approaches diverge and differ across markets.”
In Hong Kong, a new startup, Captive8 OOH, has sought to tackle some of these challenges by bringing hypertargeting to DOOH using two-sided, eye-level LED displays mounted atop taxis, giving 280-degree viewability; its technology enables interchangeable branded content based on the vehicle’s GPS information, location-specific audience data, time of day, and weather.
With such technology, a preordered taxi’s advertising can be tailored to the customer waiting for its arrival, whilst the ad can then change as the taxi moves through the districts of the city. Advertisers are also able to track where and when their ads are displayed.
Another example of how a local market is adapting to DOOH is Thailand, which has long been a large OOH market. In recent years, there has been significant investment in DOOH, with it gaining a large presence through Bangkok in particular.
Inventory is not only limited to large-scale LED screens, there are now also intensive placements of screens along major thoroughfares. This ensures that the single screen, otherwise blink-and-you-miss-it, can now be used to deliver a longer message as vehicles with drivers and passengers progress along a major artery, creating something akin to a captive, cinematic approach to advertising in an OOH space.
Among the other factors DOOH delivers is an immediacy in creativity. Tourism Australia has been a leading proponent of this, delivering through DOOH media creative that might have previously been communicated through the press.
For example, when England beat Australia in the FIFA Women’s World Cup semifinal match, Tourism Australia were able to immediately tweak the campaign messaging to be relevant and consistent – “At least our holidays are unbeatable. Well done, England” – while maintaining the core messaging of inviting UK travelers to “Come and Say G’day”.
There has also been an acceleration in the ability to measure impact on DOOH. In a study done in partnership between Australia’s HBF and DOOH programmatic provider Vistar Media, OOH touchpoints along the consumer journey were measured using anonymous customer movement data mapped to DOOH locations and ad serving times.
The unified identities were then overlapped with correlated anonymous website visits for an end-to-end view of the journey. The results showed that the medium presents a unique opportunity to increase reach, frequency of exposure, and conversion rates, delivering enhanced outcomes on the investments.
So, what’s next for OOH in APAC? Over the next twelve to twenty-four months, we believe that there will be significant advances in three areas.
First, with full-funnel measurement of DOOH becoming much easier, the impact of DOOH ads on consumer actions can be more effectively established, further elevating the role of DOOH and accelerating investments.
Next, anamorphic executions will move beyond large standout, capital city, or metro locations to penetrate smaller cities and suburbs. Smaller-scale solutions that drive impact, such as six-sheet poster sizes, will emerge as anamorphic becomes the norm. Anamorphic is, after all, just forced perspective in digital form.
“Whilst programmatic will become more sophisticated with in-the-moment solutions, the connectivity of OOH and enabling connected messaging will be the most important components for activation.”
Finally, whilst programmatic will become more sophisticated with in-the-moment solutions, the connectivity of OOH and enabling connected messaging will be the most important components for activation. That is, the ability for DOOH to connect the physical and digital worlds, and across devices, through first-party data ingested by DOOH providers and matched with device IDs, then activated across a spectrum of OOH touchpoints.
Given the rise of personalization, the ability to measure, and an increasing desire to explore creative solutions in the use of OOH, alongside the ever-increasing evidence that the channel drives long-term memory encoding, brands in APAC will be seeking to invest more as well as trial new solutions and test new innovations. OOH is cost-efficient and impactful and works through the funnel – and with a normalization of daily routines, consumers are once again in place to see and engage with brands through this incredibly important medium.
Featured image by Image by Jezael Melgoza.
