Why Transit Digital Out-of-Home Advertising Is Here to Stay From digital cartop screens to sophisticated measurement techniques, transit DOOH is disrupting the advertising space.
By Ibrahim Ibrahim Edited by Chelsea Brown
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Conventional forms of advertising — print, radio and television — are no longer the most effective channels of communication. Historically, mass advertising supposedly worked, perhaps because we didn't know any better. But in this digital age, personalization and targeting are the only things that matter. They are also the key pillars used to determine the success of any marketing campaign.
That said, conventional channels do hold their merits, and that's why marketers around the world are increasingly merging their learnings from online advertising with traditional media channels to produce a hybrid model. One successful example of that can be seen in the evolution of out-of-home (OOH) advertising, where owing largely to technological advancements, its digital format (DOOH) can now be used to send out more relevant messages on relevant occasions. The next step within the digitization of OOH is what the world has been talking about frequently these days: transit DOOH.
Related: 4 Tips for Designing Engaging Out-of-Home Advertising in 2022
What is transit DOOH?
With public transportation offering a large chunk of attentive audiences commuting through cities several times a day, marketers often turn to advertise on buses and cartops to capture more visibility for their brand. Imagine the increased effectiveness of these campaigns when they're displayed on dynamic smart screens as opposed to static, printed posters.
Transit DOOH's efficiency in allowing advertisers to meet their KPIs is not only supported by theories, but proven by numbers. According to a study conducted by Nielsen in 2020, 91% of people made a purchase during a visit to advertised retail locations after seeing their digital cartop advertisements, and more than 46% engaged in at least one action on their smartphone after seeing these transit digital ads. Additionally, over 51% of those who had noticed digital cartop ads in the past 30 days from when the study was conducted were highly engaged and looked at them "all" or "most of the time."
How can transit DOOH be personalized?
Data-driven advertising campaigns are bound to perform better than generic, mass communication. If a brand wants their transit DOOH campaigns to be relevant, they should leverage insights that have the potential to grab their target audience's attention and continuously update their campaign.
At Override, the transit DOOH venture I co-founded, we've witnessed that adjusting a creative's copy based on the following factors will yield the biggest returns:
Location
Language
Time of day
Weather
Live sport scores
Realtime traffic information
Related: How Brands Build Trust Through OOH (Out of Home) Advertising?
What makes transit DOOH effective?
OOH advertising currently surpasses the trustworthiness of all other marketing channels. And while consumers are annoyed with online ads which eventually get blocked, the right OOH message can be a game-changer. However, seeing as most billboards are only in one place at a time, it becomes challenging for brands to appeal to the many different demographics they have. On the contrary, transit DOOH allows advertisers to:
Relevantly reach target audiences: Data-driven media owners make it possible for advertisers to reach relevant audiences. By determining where a brand's target audiences are more likely to spend time, a transit DOOH ad copy can be displayed to those likely to take action upon exposure. This methodology ensures that advertisers get maximum return on the ad budget spent.
Properly measure impact: Without measuring impressions, it is not possible to determine whether a campaign is successful or not. Transit DOOH solutions that employ data collection and modeling techniques are able to measure the daily performance of campaigns, bridging the gap between online and offline advertising.
Easily publish campaigns: Right now, the way outdoor media is sold has large bottlenecks and is both lengthy and fragmented as well. Transit DOOH companies introducing programmatic solutions are making launching an OOH campaign as hassle-free as posting an online ad.
Up until a few years ago, transit ads — much like any other OOH medium from street furniture to billboards — were catering to the masses. With digitization, street-level targeting and evolved measurement techniques, it is now possible for brands to reach their audiences in relevant and more meaningful ways.
I believe that any advertising effort that fails to capture the right people at the right time and the right context is a wasted one. Besides, the all-encompassing nature of advertising is leading brands to explore more technology-driven, hyper-targeted media channels. Designing data-driven campaigns is the only way to thrive through the noise.
