As an off-line medium, outdoor advertising has a great advantage over all online media such as Google, Facebook and Pinterest combined. Billboards, shelters, and scaffolds also show you ads that are not determined by your online behavior, search history, big data, and algorithms. In other words: outdoor advertising is not shrinking but is expanding, and therefore guarantees the growth of new customers.
The outdoor advertising is visible on the streets 24 hours a day as a medium, and therefore offers a very broad reach. Operators can offer national (or regional) rounds with which an advertiser can easily reach a range of 40 to 55 percent.
But there is another important reason why outdoor advertising is apparently hyperactive and indispensable as a seemingly antiquated medium. This has everything to do with the rise of Google and Facebook and the decline in traditional TV viewing. Thanks to the increase in streaming services such as Netflix, young people are already seeing 20% less television in the traditional way.
PROFILE
As a result, more and more people only see ads that Google, Facebook, and other online media consider appropriate and appropriate for them according to their profile.
And the result can be guessed. While advertising used to be revealing, today advertising is rather narrow.
Previously, advertising showed new products, brands and application options. Now you almost only see advertising that matches what you want to see yourself.
All this is due to the notorious big data and intelligent algorithms. We are on Facebook, we publish on Twitter, we communicate through WhatsApp, we chat with Snapchat, we search on Google, we plan routes with TomTom or Google Maps. Thanks to all the traces or digital data that we distribute, we are better to follow than Hansel and Gretel with their stones through the forest. With just carrying a mobile phone with you, it leaves so many traces that companies can guide us with precision.
USEFUL FUNCTION
This is, of course, useful for businesses and organizations. You probably already use it, because it uses Google Adwords, dynamic advertising or other SEO methods, for example.
The same big data also means that advertising is no longer what it was. Advertising used to have a broad and useful function. Advertising expanded your view of the world. The advertising showed you new products, brands and application options. Now advertising is shrinking. You will only see what Google and Facebook consider right for you based on your profile.
THREAT
But that is also a threat to brands and advertisers. Because as a brand, you must have the widest possible reach to attract as many customers as possible.
This is clearly demonstrated by marketing guru Byron Sharp in his sales success How Brands Grow (subtitle: What sellers do not know). Insists on the importance of reaching potential customers. Brands with a large market share are bought more often than brands with a small market share. In other words, in the longer term, revenue growth can only be achieved if it attracts more customers, and not just by trying to make existing customers buy more, a belief that is still valid for many sellers.
NIVEA CLEANSING MILK
With a very simple example: suppose someone buys a bottle of Nivea cleaning milk every month. It is almost impossible to ensure that this loyal consumer buys a bottle of this type every two weeks. Even with 1-to-1 personal communication, you barely achieve that. But Nivea can ensure that there are more people who buy cleaning milk. That’s why Nivea should attract new buyers.
Therefore, reaching more potential customers is essential, and outdoor advertising is, of course, the perfect medium for this. With billboards, shelters, and columns, it reaches people who would never reach online.
