The Comeback of Billboard Advertising

Photo by Ursula Ott on Unsplash

With the rise in AI technologies across all segments of digital marketing, is it calling for the comeback of billboard advertising? The ever-growing capabilities of AI technology are inundating the world of marketing and Out of Home (OOH) media are also getting their fair share of love from the machine learning experts.  

We’re all used to seeing the same old billboard wrap on the side of a highway or waiting at a bus stop with a billboard ravishing about the next fresh-faced model promoting the newest concealer that will revolutionise your skin. 

Traditionally, billboards were used in conjunction with radio and TV advertising as a means of re-marketing. However, marketers quickly ran into the issue of their ads not reaching their target audience. Their billboards’ inability to gather data and implement changes immediately along with the growing online marketing boom ultimately led to the decline in demand for billboards. 

In recent years, the rise in the digitalisation of billboards has opened new doors for this medium. These smart screens are allowing businesses to display engaging, adaptive, and personalised advertisements through utilising pixel tags, motion and sound detectors, and facial detectors. This technology ultimately aids in the billboard’s ability to observe, understand, and react to any passer-by. Therefore, businesses are not only placing their ads where their target customers are, but they are now also able to actively engage with these customers.  

KLM Royal Dutch Airlines ran a “Free Cancellation” campaign in 2021 on smart billboards in Sweden which detected cold symptoms of sneezes and coughs. The onlooker would then be presented with a ‘bless you’ pop up and reminded of KLM’s free cancellation of their trip to Lisbon. This creative campaign detected 40,000 symptoms and resulted in a 70% increase in sales in Sweden for summer trips, thus ultimately proving the creative potential of smart billboards. 

More and more businesses are now learning about the capabilities of smart billboards which is prompting marketers to become more creative with their engagement tactics. Marketers are now able to capture an onlooker’s attention through creative interactive installations which exceed the traditional 8 second rule of billboards. Billboards can better cater their range of ads to the individual engaging with them through pixel tags which can pick up the consumer’s interests, background, and shopping behaviour.  Marketers’ attention is gradually shifting to the personalisation of ads to each consumer which is seeing marketers and advertising companies working more closely to dissect the data obtained and adapt them accordingly.  

Businesses looking to jump onto smart billboards should aim to remain flexible and open to the growing capabilities of these machines. Working closely with OOH advertisers will be key to unpacking the consumer data collected and innovating newer and better campaigns. The increasing automation of the digital sphere will continue to provide marketers with greater innovative power to create memorable billboard campaigns while simultaneously providing key insights into consumer behaviour. 

Despite the promising future of smart billboards, will this cut through the media clutter or are we too absorbed in our phones to enjoy the changes happening around us?