Out of Home Advertising: Leading the way in a cookieless future

The cookieless future is almost upon us and digital marketers will hopefully have their strategies in place to work with first-party data rather than relying on simpler past models. As we move into this new world of metrics, what can the digital media landscape learn from the oldest medium – Out of Home (OOH)? Unsurprisingly OOH has been ahead of this game for a long time, going cookieless is not a problem for a channel that never relied on them. As OOH has evolved over the past decade, data is as much a part of its recent history as it has been for digital marketing. 

Digital OOH (DOOH) has changed rapidly over the past decade. It’s no longer about choosing a location and sending someone out with a jigsaw of papers and a paste bucket. These panels change several times per minute to match traffic light waits or programmes that will be on TV later that evening. They are live and lively, and the planning data used is surprisingly granular. 

Dynamic and reactive content is taking off as DOOH. A simple example is a fast food chain with a digital screen monitoring ambient temperature. When the temperature rises above 20 degrees, it switches from showing burgers to ice cream, applying contextual relevancy and driving purchase intent. 

The vast layers of data that are now collated can be used dynamically and can push business objectives as never before. Dynamic content empowers this even further. OOH buys can now focus on a combination of granularly targeted audiences, first-party data sources, geographic relevancy and many more inputs to deliver a level of targeting that rivals newer channels. 

While some digital marketing practitioners might think their skills are only for the smaller screens, programmatic, digital planners, buyers and creatives are having a great time in DOOH, finding new and award-winning solutions. The skills earned in digital are now just as relevant in OOH and OOH can teach digital a great deal about working with brand and first-party data to become enormously effective – without a cookie crumb on the table. 

The DOOH way is not a matter of ‘wait and see’, it has raised its measurement bar even higher. With the right investment, there are ways to get truly effective ROI, with demonstrable client returns up to 57%1 with dynamic rather than static creative.

Creative, granular and bigger

While DOOH buys can be large with the volume of panels now available, the granular data used for precision targeting gets incredible results. By using postcode-level location data, OOH ROI can be improved by up to 42% as shown in a recent study by JCDecaux and Nielsen2. OOH-driven sales are 47% attributable to creative execution, 22% to reach, 15% to branding and 9% to audience targeting3. Getting the location right in specific ways helps to raise those figures.

Messaging is also an important aspect that is driven by data. In a cost of living crisis, strategic creative elements such as straightforward monetary values can boost ROI by as much as 28%, driving brand preference up by four times as audiences respond positively to the transparency of the up-front approach4. OOH data can provide clear insights into how best to capture attention in different environments – whether it’s through colour palettes, the power of faces to elicit response, the exact pitfalls of an over-busy layout, how much contextual executions shift the dial, and plenty of other details that can underpin the ROI of a great piece of creative work.

This increased measurement capability goes beyond planning and helps OOH practitioners understand what makes an ad effective from a creative standpoint. It also opens up new possibilities for the medium, while OOH is and always will be top-of-funnel fame medium, it can now be used effectively for lower funnel activities, targeting audiences in the right place at the right time, and critically, ensuring it’s the specific audience desired, primed and ready to purchase. 

So, while brands are working with digital online planning that may still be scrambling to find the best solution in a cookieless future, OOH is already ahead of the game, able to share advice on data best practices and getting more out of campaigns that meet customers where they want to be. 

Emily Alcorn, Head of Effectiveness at Talon

Source: 1 Analytic partners. 2 JCD Location Matters. 3 Nielsen analysis of over 500 campaigns. 4 Talon Canvas benchmarks