How Mobile Is Reinvigorating Out-Of-Home Advertising

In many ways, billboards are in the same boat as other traditional media. They’re “static,” and ROI is challenging to measure. Yet, ironically, mobile is helping give out-of-home (OOH) new life.

For example, location analytics company Placed has introduced what it calls “Out-Of-Home Attribution.” The idea is to connect OOH exposure to store visits. Place does that with a large panel of opt-in smartphone users who agree to share location in exchange for incentives.

The principle is the same as connecting mobile or PC ad exposures to store visits. Mobile marketing platform xAd also works with OOH and provides audience and attribution data.

Rather than showing simple surrounding foot or auto traffic near a billboard or OOH site, Placed is also promoting what might be called “OOH viewability”:

Placed is introducing a patent pending approach to viewability that goes beyond proximity and takes into account angle, distance, and direction. The ability to not only measure proximity, but viewability, combined with the digital standard for ad to in-store, makes OOH on par with digital in terms of measurement and attribution.

Source: Placed

Placed announced launch partners that include Rapport, Horizon, Posterscope, Kinetic, Clear Channel Outdoor and National CineMedia (NCM).

This announcement is part of a larger story: connecting media exposures (PC, traditional, mobile) to real-world consumer actions: store visits and sales. This is a major 2016 trend.

Clicks and impressions will have far less value going forward, and business outcomes and actual consumer behavior will become the new currency to judge and optimize digital (or traditional) media performance.