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OOH advertising in Cross-media Campaigns

Image of a DOOH ad in New York that could be measured by Beatgrid's cross-media audience measurement and ad effectiveness solution

How to measure OOH attribution in the cross-channel context

Accurate campaign measurement of OOH advertising will improve your cross-media ad efficiency with younger audiences.

The Out of Home Advertising Association of America (OAAA), the national trade association in the US for the $8.6 billion OOH and digital OOH (DOOH) advertising industry, ran a survey at the end of 2020 with Harris and concluded that “OUT” is now “IN”.

The Harris Poll out-of-home and digital out-of-home advertising survey:

To back this headline up, the study found that Americans are walking, driving, and biking more following the end of lockdowns. This is a truism we all recognise and it has not only led to a raised appreciation of the outdoors but also awareness and recognition of out-of-home (OOH) advertising, especially among 18 to 54-year audiences. It also found that 68% of U.S. consumers agree that they are tuning out online ads as they spend so much more time on various device screens.

The study also reports that consumers now notice OOH advertising 45% more than they did prior to lockdowns so this study reflects what we all feel instinctive, and puts some interesting numbers out there to work with. These insights support the fact that there is strong interest among advertisers who want to better understand the incremental impact of OOH on nudging up the unduplicated reach of their cross-media campaigns. Many advertisers know they must holistically measure OOH advertising when part of a cross-media campaign.

Measurement of OOH advertising’s incremental reach as a key part of a campaign’s effectiveness is gaining momentum among a growing band of brand advertisers who are leaving no stone unturned in pushing back on the wasteful buying of duplicated reach across their TV campaigns.

To maintain and grow reach, there must be a bias towards action to free up much-needed budget to evaluate the efficiency of other media that can maybe deliver exclusive reach without duplication. This would suggest that following a successful test-and-learn pilot, always-on measurement to track campaigns, is as relevant for OOH advertising as all other parts of the media mix. With quality data in support, OOH advertising will increasingly be acknowledged as a long-term, always-on medium for advertisers to optimize effective reach.

Digital audience burnout in the cross-device advertising space is real

Advertisers must holistically measure OOH advertising when included in a cross-media campaign, as it has proven reach increments when added to the media mix.​

Advertising that is seen out of home (OOH) used to predominantly be called poster or billboard sites, in various shapes and sizes. These were labour-intensive and inflexible once posted but nevertheless, in the right location, incredibly powerful for brand messaging or communicating upcoming news and events. 

The OAAA not surprisingly reported that 68% of people were experiencing increased levels of digital burnout in 2020, making real the world-spread evidence that people were consciously starting to feel like they were spending too much time consuming digital content on their screens, and being bombarded with -sometimes- annoying and intrusive ads. That’s alongside the heightening concerns of today’s data-savvy consumers about privacy around data collection in the media environments, a direct consequence of all the known data pilfering modus operandi that some tech giants have operated on as a basis.

Image of the OOH advertising findings, younger audiences add OOH incrementality in cross-platform campaigns

64% of younger audiences add OOH incremental reach to cross-media advertising campaigns

Beatgrid proves with real-campaign industry data collected in the past two years that not only there is a younger audience on OOH but also that it is anything around 63.79% purely incremental to BVOD and TV.

Thanks to Beatgrid’s single-source cross-media audience measurement solution, we collected accurate measurement data that allowed us to assess the impact of out-of-home advertising exposure… and the findings were pretty remarkable.

Backing up the above-mentioned digital audience burnout theory of the OAAA, across multiple cross-media campaigns in different regions which included a comparison of BVOD, TV, and OOH incremental reach ratio, we spotted increments of OOH reach from 18 to 24 at 63.79% and 18 to 34 at 51.11% vs 18 to 69 at 31.49%. This is a key example of OOH’s growing value in cross-media advertising campaigns with younger audiences. Furthermore, the OOH cross-campaign total reach was proven to be significantly higher than the combined total BVOD & TV total reach.

Boost your media mix with OOH if your cross-platform advertising goals are to reach younger consumers

Beatgrid cross-channel and cross-campaign data confirms increments in TV reach between the ages of 18 to 69 at 28.89% vs 18 to 34 at 19.74%

Believe it or not, OOH -not the standard and old-school (but still valuable) billboard close to the highway exit, but the updated and more impactful contextual methods- deliver higher incremental reach on younger audiences than other media. Though the traditional TV market is changing, due to the disruption of TV, BVOD, AVOD, YouTube, and other imaginable digital media channels, we were still able to collect accurate single-source cross-market BVOD, TV, and OOH campaign data. In our analysis -comparing the above media- increments in TV reach were spotted between the ages of 18 to 69 at 28.89% vs 18 to 34 at 19.74%, thus confirming the pre-existing pattern observed in the industry, that states that older audiences are more prone to be reached via TV and or BVOD than younger viewers.

Image of today's Linear TV advertising landscape where older audiences boost this channel's incrementality vs younger audiences and channels

A clear opportunity for advertisers: OOH is a crucial support channel for TV (TV and BVOD)

Measurement data is confirming that the harder-to-reach TV audience of 18-35s that is moving away from Linear TV, can be reached through consistent inclusion of CTV and OOH on the media plan.

Yes, it is true that somewhat younger audiences are found on BVOD vs TV (linear, FTV, STV…) but we all know where they bloom: AVOD, YouTube, and even TikTok, which could be already considered like a new channel -but that’s a topic for another time-. However, we have spotted that 18 to 24s are likely to be reached on OOH and DOOH, inviting this channel to become the newest loyal squire of CTV advertising campaigns -which given the right timing and context can unleash an extremely positive brand lift effect with Millennials and Gen Zs.

The next step is to accurately measure OOH incrementality compares to YouTube and/or AVOD with younger audiences in cross-media campaigns, and across different regions. But for that… you will need to schedule a free call with one of our Campaign Specialists! 😉

DOOH & OOH advertising: The opportunity has evolved extraordinarily for brands

The above-proven results strengthen the effective role that OOH advertising plays in a balanced media mix. After running Beatgrid’s cross-platform solution in +400 campaigns across different regions, we are in the position to validate OOH as a channel with the unique potential to cut through offline, by targeting people when they are outdoors and going about their own activities. With the pervasive replacement of many of these traditional poster and billboard sites with digital screens, OOH has strengthened its legendary place in offering a range of formats and unique locations for major brand messaging at high visual impact.

DOOH (digital out-of-home) seamlessly opens the channel for performance marketing campaigns.

With the ability to measure activations and conversions via mobile phone connectivity in the outdoors, and with major technological advancements in wireless and mobile, DOOH is the out-of-home advertising option for targeting addressable audiences outside of their home environments. DOOH offers new ways to use outdoor advertising to connect and interact with consumers on the move, throughout the day, using data to inform the planning and buying.

With DOOH, the measurement of OOH and OOH attribution is evolving with technology

Official measurement systems for OOH in most developed markets are advancing fast. For example, in the UK, the OOH JIC, Route, now uses Multi-Sensory-Tracking (MST) devices to analyse people’s travel patterns across the UK and combines this data with detailed mapping of every outdoor site in the country. In 2021, they fused their data with TGI consumer survey data so that advertisers could target TGI audiences in OOH, creating the opportunity for more sophisticated audience profiling. This information was then fed into their Traffic Intensity Model to offer audience estimates for each ad played at a site level in the country, to enable better planning of OOH campaigns.

Opportunity-to-see (OTS) based advertising vs Fusion Data

Reporting audiences solely on an opportunity to see (OTS) basis advertising is now being replaced by fusion data estimating the quantified number of people who see the ooh ads. Measurement of OOH attribution is largely framed around measuring online and social media impacts and has developed by using third-party location data collected from the pervasive distribution of mobile apps on smartphones to help understand consumer mobility and journey patterns. Tracking location, with permissions, via dating apps and weather apps, inter alia, creates the opportunity to use those device locations to derive attribution data by aggregating the app-sourced location data with digital activations on the mobile phone. Another approach is to use a test control methodology with exposed and unexposed samples to track their effectiveness.

Delivering OOH attribution in the cross-channel context

The question of the specific effectiveness of OOH as part of a cross-media campaign driven by TV is happening too. Machine learning methodologies are being applied to TV campaigns to measure footfall at retail stores. Aggregation of the derived data with audiences derived by location is being used in addressable TV at a household or postcode level. And it’s a start. With the emergence of new measurement data sets, the push is on, to go further and to see the ad spend on OOH as an integrated piece of the cross-media measurement jigsaw.

“Advanced location technology that is tuned for higher location accuracy is needed for quality OOH audience measurement and attribution analytics.”

Leveraging multiple sensors such as GPS, Wi-Fi beacons, and cell tower accuracy to 5m, is currently possible. Solutions are using geo-fencing technology for specified locations, based on geo-coordinates, this means that a location ‘check-in’ will occur when an app user enters a virtual fenced location such as a retailer shop or QSR outlet.

Working alongside the exact location data of all digital frame sites.

It’s possible to use the gyroscopic sensors in smartphones to determine the direction and speed of approach to an OOH and DOOH site and even collect dwell time if these signals indicate a person has stayed a given time in front of a site. This may not be a verified ad exposure but it is a highly qualified opportunity to see, which can be used for single-source attribution of store visitation which is particularly meaningful as part of a broader cross-channel measurement alongside TV and radio.

If the geo-fencing location technology is integrated with the same mobile app with a passive ACR (automated content recognition) metering tech, it would be possible to identify the exclusive reach of OOH and dig deeper into the effectiveness of the OOH in driving visitation using exposed and non-exposed samples.

Join the future of cross-media audience measurement for OOH incremental reach with confidence and single-source transparency.

By Keith Johnson
By Keith Johnson

Beatgrid GM UK

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