How Video Advertising Can Transform Your DOOH Marketing

If everyone’s using video marketing to get ahead, doesn’t that undermine its usefulness as a way to grab attention? 

Digital Out of Home (DOOH) advertising offers a real opportunity to attract attention using video, precisely because most video marketing strategies are focused online. 

With many audiences experiencing high levels of digital burnout or using ad blockers to remove online content they consider intrusive, it’s becoming increasingly harder to cut through. 

DOOH video ads transform your marketing strategy by catching consumers’ attention in more neutral spaces. And, whilst the availability of digital video walls, display ads, billboards and other digital signage has increased, public and outdoor advertising is far from reaching the saturation point online media is currently experiencing. 

This offers potential for mass-targeted brand awareness and product marketing that really stands out. 

DOOH is a mass-audience tool, so the skillset here is to aim for top-level information with your video content, rather than getting too specific. 

Big, bold, brand awareness plays work well, as does mass product marketing. Your audience isn’t generally in a place where they’ll be paying attention to finer details – too much will be missed, or worse, actively ignored. 

The types of video ads that work well on digital displays are: 

• Short videos: Videos increase engagement time, but there is a limit. To avoid losing the attention of your audience, communicate key messages in the first few seconds. 
• Visually bold messages: Using color, shape, typeface and design to grab the eye is vital to attracting engagement with your ad in a public place. 
• Dynamic content: Movement is everything. This doesn’t have to be complex – a couple of basic animations or fly-in text can make all the difference. 

To demonstrate how simple and effective video ad campaigns can be, take a look at insurance provider Vitality’s pitch-side ad below. It’s bright, simple and all that moves is their signature dachshund, chasing the soccer ball over the text on the outside of the field. 

Immediately, as the dog runs over ‘health insurance’ and ‘life insurance’ texts, it’s clear what Vitality offers. Meanwhile, the bold, bright and fun approach stands out significantly in an industry filled with staid, gloomy and relatively samey ‘advertising’. 

(Source: omm.agency) 

First, the important thing to realize is that highway billboards do not allow for video content. This is because moving images are considered to be too much of a distraction to motorists, as well as pedestrians who may be trying to cross the road. As such, video content on highway billboards goes against traffic laws. 

What this does illustrate, however, is just how eye-catching and attention-drawing video advertising is – and in safe environments is very powerful indeed. 

Place-based media – such as screens found in shopping malls, entertainment venues, and sports stadia – are all fantastic venues for displaying video ads, as are transit screens, gas stations and other outdoor mediums like street furniture and urban panels. The best video advertisements are those that tell a quick 15-second or so story that immediately convey a message. Social media networks like TikTok have made such quick, punchy, and relatable videos hugely popular, and DOOH advertisers are starting to adopt this style into their outdoor advertising campaigns. 

The brands that do best are those that make people stop and stare, and those that can combine short TikTok-style entertainment with a powerful CTA that drives measurable action, such as visiting a nearby store, a website, or social media page. Place-based media is ideal for this type of content.

Digital OOH advertising offers huge potential for video ads because: 

• Video ads stand out: Many DOOH ads (and all traditional OOH ads) are static. Incorporating movement makes your ad immediately more attention-grabbing to a large audience of consumers. 
• Video ads increase engagement time: Consumers typically have more time to take in ads in public places. Video grabs their attention for longer and increases engagement. 
• You can tie ads into extended digital campaigns: The popularity of short, Tik-Tok-style videos on social media offers significant potential for cross-platform campaigns that build brand awareness on a wider scale. 

You can now buy space on digital billboards, digital screens and other types of digital display programmatically, like you would for online advertisements. 

As well as game-changing real-time analytics and significant time savings, this means you can now use your mass advertising campaigns to specifically target the most relevant audiences. 

Programmatic DOOH (or pDOOH) allows you to set the conditions under which your ad will be displayed (for example, temperature, estimated footfall, time of day, weather conditions) and only pay for ad space where those conditions will be met. 

In other words: your video content will be shown to receptive audiences, right when they’re ready to buy. This transforms your video DOOH marketing from a useful brand awareness tool to a targeted, trackable and effective direct revenue driver. This is because you can use video content to drive action directly amongst your target audience. While programmatic capabilities allow you to pinpoint and target your ideal buyers in the places they are most likely to be, video content is ideal for getting them to do what you want them to do – visit your nearby store and buy your products.

Traditional DOOH buying methods lack the real-time campaign analytics, one-click optimization and audience targeting you need to run a truly dynamic DOOH video campaign. 

The Neuron is a platform that automates the bidding process for DOOH inventory. As well as saving valuable time and connecting you to the media you need instantly, you benefit from:

• Uploading content, optimizing it and setting it live in just a couple of clicks
• Real-time data analytics for immediate campaign optimization
• Defining your target audience and only paying for ad space that reaches it

Need help creating your dynamic video ad artwork? Check out our free Creative Guidelines download. Or, if you’re ready to dive straight in, you can get started with The Neuron here.