Out of home (OOH) advertising has advanced leaps and bounds over the past ten years or more, thanks to the growing proliferation of digital billboards and other digital screens which are now affordably and readily available via programmatic digital OOH (pDOOH) platforms.
DOOH advertising is ia powerful medium to reach mass audiences with eye-catching, impactful messages – which can now be tailored in real-time in response to time- and location-based factors like the weather, temperature, breaking news, or live sports events.
Read more: 3 Ways Location Based Advertising Can Improve Your Business
However, one innovative variation of the digital outdoor advertising medium that rarely fails to make a lasting impression is the interactive billboard.
Interactive billboards are digital out of home screens that encourage some form of consumer participation. Usually, the advertisement being shown will change following an action completed by the viewer. That action might involve pulling out a mobile device to view a hidden message, or it may be to do with the viewer moving their body in a certain way, or simply pressing a button to make a choice.
Consumers love interactive content and advertising.
In fact, 45% of consumers say that interactive content is one of their favorite content types, according to a recent study.
(Image source: visme.co)
Marketers are well aware of the power of interactive content, too – 81% say it holds audience attention better than static content, and 79% say it enhances message recall.
(Image source: visme.co)
Interactive Digital Billboards – Leading Examples
When it comes to outdoor advertising campaigns, interactive digital billboards take many forms. Let’s take a look at a few inspiring examples of what some market-leading brands have achieved with the medium.
GMC Arcadia SUV
In this innovative and high-tech campaign from American car brand GMC, eight interactive digital out of home screens were installed in Santa Monica Place Mall. The screens were fully equipped with video sensors that could detect a passing shopper’s demographic, whether they were alone or in a group, or part of a couple or a family.
The system could also identify whether the person standing in front of the screen was an adult or a child, and could detect their mood – for instance, if they were smiling or frowning. One of 30 responsive videos for the GMC Arcadia SUV then played to the viewer based on the information the video sensor captured resulting in a highly personalized and targeted experience.
(Video source: youtube.com)
Dallas Cowboys – Pose with the Pros
In 2019, the Dallas Cowboys launched a fun and engaging interactive campaign entitled “Pose with the Pros” at the AT&T stadium. Installing several special kiosks around the stadium, fans were invited to take ‘selfies’ while standing with virtual members of the Dallas Cowboys team.
Fans could choose up to five of their favorite players to pose with, then an augmented reality (AR) application superimposed those players around the individual or small group in a photograph. Fans could then share the image on social media or email it to their friends and family. The campaign generated upwards of 50 million impressions on social media.
(Video source: youtube.com)
Women’s Aid – Look at Me
Timed to coincide with International Women’s Day, this hugely creative and highly impactful digital out of home interactive billboard advertisement was designed to raise awareness of domestic violence.
The creative featured the battered and bruised face of a woman alongside the lines “Look at me,” and “Don’t turn a blind eye.” The installed screens featured gaze tracking technology which could tell how many people were looking at the screen. The more people that looked at the woman’s face, the faster the cuts and bruises healed, delivering an impactful and memorable experience for the audience.
Women’s Aid #lookatme campaign from Ocean Outdoor on Vimeo.
(Video source: vimeo.com)
Are Interactive Billboards the Future of DOOH Advertising?
Clearly, interactive digital out of home advertisements have a high impact. They are impressive, memorable, engaging, shareable, and creative – the complete recipe, in other words, for a successful marketing campaign.
The question, is however – how practical are interactive DOOH campaigns for the average business?
As one might expect, launching an interactive billboard campaign can be an expensive endeavor that requires a significant amount of time and resources. As exemplified in the campaigns above, interactive billboard ads are nearly always bespoke installations, launched by big brands in direct partnership with big media companies.
As such, although interactive billboard campaigns are still relatively new, exciting, and can create a big buzz on social media, they are generally highly exclusive to large companies and big brands. While we are likely to see more of them in the future, they are unlikely to become as widespread as non-interactive DOOH billboards, while the technology and setup remains prohibitively expensive for most businesses.
That doesn’t mean that smaller brands can’t achieve success with DOOH advertising, however.
In fact, there are many fantastic digital out of home advertising opportunities available to even the smallest of brands with the tightest of budgets and resource constraints.
Today, thanks to the power of programmatic DOOH (pDOOH) platforms like The Neuron, SMBs have immediate and affordable access to premium digital billboards and other signage all over the country – and there are plenty of ways to get consumers to interact with DOOH content that do not require a special installation.
Hashtags, QR codes, website addresses, street addresses, directions to nearby stores, weather-related promotions, location-based adverts – all these options and more are readily available to SMBs via powerful pDOOH platforms such as The Neuron.
Read more: How to Use Digital Billboard Advertising to Target Your Audience
The truth is that engaging DOOH content doesn’t have to be expensive to encourage audiences to interact with it. With some clever creative, hyper-targeting and the right promotion, DOOH advertising can be hugely successful for SMBs.
If you want to find out how, download our free guide – How to Create a Successful DOOH Advertising Campaign: What It Takes to Get Attention.
