Sure, 2020 was a wild year. But, the ongoing vaccine rollout is encouraging and certain to bring much anticipated change. After months spent indoors, we expect to see more folks willing to go out for travel, leisure, or work in the near future.

As more people frequent the outdoors, out-of-home (OOH) advertising provides a prime opportunity for retail businesses to connect with their target audience. Since digital advertising and social media channels will remain saturated, leveraging OOH can enable retailers to stand out from the pack.

OOH advertising campaigns in arenas, cinemas, subways, bus shelters, and murals can boost your stores' foot traffic. Also, OOH for retail companies is particularly effective because it lets stores attract customers within their communities.

Still, not convinced? Let’s take a look at the perks of OOH advertising for brands.

1. Increase Brand Recognition
A prominent billboard or signage can increase brand awareness and familiarity for your product or retail store.

Unlike digital ads, consumers are unable to skip, hide, or otherwise ignore OOH. Consumers who frequent the area will be exposed to the ads as they move through their daily journey.

For maximum effectiveness, place your ads in high traffic areas. If you want to target passersby, you can place OOH in the vicinity of your store.

Take a look at this Coach wallscape, which grabs the attention of commuters passing by daily.

Another option is location placement in areas that your target audience frequents. For example, if you want to reach grocery shoppers, place ads near grocery retailers to generate extra publicity and trigger your products' impulse buying.

The unique characteristics of OOH mean that it has a high potential return on investment (ROI), especially for retailers that want to boost visits to their stores.

2. Consumers Respond to OOH
Not surprisingly, consumers respond to OOH ads because they see them often.
Nielsen reports that 40% of adults frequented an organization's Facebook page because they saw the OOH ad.

This proves that OOH advertising can incite responses among consumers. People are likely to go to a brand’s website, visit a store, or check out the brand on social media.

Consider this eye-catching Prada ad that subtly encourages apparel aficionados to keep the brand at the back of their mind.

3. OOH Is Attention-Grabbing
Traditional billboards may not seem like an enticing modern advertisement because it seems too conventional. While the location is key to outdoor advertising success, you can improve your results through custom indexed placement and leveraging multiple ad formats that are placed along the consumer journey.

For example, Wonder Bread's hand painted wall uses vibrant colors and illustrations to stir buzz across the streets. The vivid images can easily draw the attention of people of all ages as they walk, bike and drive by.

Another unique option takes a traditional wallscape to promote your brand on the road. For instance, this placement for the Washington State Lottery is lit up with special LED lights and UV paint that bring the creative to life at night.

So, How Will You Leverage Out-of-Home?
Once social distancing measures ease, more people will frequent the great outdoors. Advertisers can use this as an opportunity to increase brand touchpoints to motivate consumers to interact with the brand on mobile or visit their physical location.

To attract local consumers, brands must remain relevant in their communities. Build presence in high-traffic neighborhoods that serve your products and goods because airports, restaurants, bars, theaters, and malls will be back in action.

And, OOH will have immense potential in the upcoming months so start planning your campaigns today.