OOH advertising boosts market share by more than a third

Coinciding with Mediatel’s Out-of-Home Summit which took place earlier this week, a new report published today reveals that using out-of-home within advertising campaigns increases market share growth by 36%, boosts profit growth by 20% and attracts 15% more new customers compared to campaigns that shun the medium.

The report, compiled by industry analyst Peter Field and commissioned by Rapport in association with the IPA, examines 147 case studies of effectiveness advertising and marketing campaigns from the IPA’s Effectiveness Awards Databank.

The analysis investigates the performance of campaigns investing at least 15 percent of their budgets on OOH – known as ‘power users’ – versus those that don’t use the medium.

Power users achieved significantly greater brand uplifts than non-users of OOH, boosting esteem – defined as building a belief in the esteem and perceived quality of the brand – by 41% and fame by 32%.

A significant uplift of 47% in short-term sales was also reported by power users vs. non-users.

The report also looked at how OOH works well with search and social media, with these digital channels benefiting from brand fame afforded by OOH.

When looking at ‘very large’ business effects, adding OOH power-use boosted the effect of search by 54% and social media by 20%.

“In today’s highly crowded media environment, the impact on consumer brand memory structures is important and valuable,” Field said.

“Moreover, its flexibility can be exploited to drive both short-term activation effects as well as long-term brand effects. As a result, campaigns using OOH deliver sturdier business results and enhance the effectiveness of other media compared to those shunning OOH.”

Paul Sambrook, global marketing director of Rapport, added: “In an increasingly cluttered media landscape, it is imperative to take stock of what’s working and improve upon it.

“This report provides tangible proof of OOH’s power to drive not just advertising success, but also business success; what constitutes best-practice in OOH; and how it integrates effectively with other media channels. Our findings will better equip marketers and the industry at large to cut through and increase performance in both the short- and long- term.”

Indeed, speaking at the Out-of-Home Summit, O2’s head of creative and media, Simon Valcarcel, said 10-15% of the brand’s overall spend is currently allocated to outdoor – adding that no other channels giving O2 the same scale, fame and high awareness that OOH and TV do.

“Over the last couple of years [our OOH budget] has increased, particularly as we’ve started to prove effectiveness and driving footfall,” Valcarcel said.

“TV and OOH are ring-fenced. We see ourselves as a brand that should be in all the stature sites; we view ourselves as a superbrand and we like to behave in that way with our media choices.”