Outdoor advertising is an offline advertisement placed outside of buildings. It is very popular and can be seen almost everywhere in the form of posters, billboards, flyers, and other formats. Despite its classic format, outdoor advertising is used by both offline and online businesses.
Types of outdoor advertising:
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billboards or hoardings are the largest format of advertising that are placed along roads and streets. Due to their size of several meters, the advertisement is highly noticeable and difficult to ignore. Billboards can be of two types: static, when the image does not change, and dynamic, with changing advertisements on them. In the first case, the billboard belongs entirely to the advertiser, in the second, several advertisers share the billboard;
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advertising on public transport is the advertising that passengers see in buses, subways, trolleybuses, and trains. It can be in the form of small flyers and full-sized posters placed in a specially designated area. Advertising directly on the vehicle is also possible, for example, by painting it in the company's colors with its emblem;
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citylights are small advertising billboards located on sidewalks. The ads in the citylights are located in a closed frame, so they are protected from external influences. In addition, city lights are illuminated, so they are always visible to pedestrians;
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pavement signs are small metal or plastic structures that are installed near offline business points to attract attention. Stands serve as an additional portable sign to let customers know that there is a store or cafe nearby;
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flyers are small advertising leaflets that people distribute on the street to other passers-by. They can be used to notify about the opening of a new business, launch promotions, give discounts, and other interesting offers.
Businesses like to use outdoor advertising because it has a simple and straightforward working mechanism. Advantages of outdoor advertising include:
- broad audience coverage — if you place an advertisement in a crowded place, it will get a lot of attention;
- no need for constant monitoring — while online advertising needs constant monitoring, budget control, and setup, outdoor advertising works by itself;
- ease of launch — the advertiser only needs to choose the format of the advertisement, rent the advertising space, and develop the advertisement design;
- fixed budget — the advertiser knows exactly how much the advertising will cost, and it is easy to plan the advertising budget.
Disadvantages of outdoor advertising include:
- it's difficult to track advertising results — there are no analytics tools for outdoor advertising that provide specific statistics on reach and the number of customers attracted;
- inability to set targeting — everyone sees outdoor advertising on the street, but not everyone is a potential customer;
- high cost — certain outdoor advertising formats such as billboards and citylights are quite expensive;
- external influence — outdoor advertising can be influenced by weather or vandals, and it's difficult to protect against it.
