An increased desire for real-world experiences, alongside ongoing investment in tech, data and innovation are what will shape OOH in 2024. The channel continues to deliver more reach than any other commercial channel (97% all UK adults weekly). But how can OOH deliver more creative and effective opportunities for brands, while also providing better experiences for consumers?
Here’s our five key trends that are poised to shape OOH over the next 12 months.
Surreal for Real
One natural by-product of a relentless stream of bad news is that audiences crave escapism. So, it’s not surprising that we’re seeing a wave of joy, humour and a significant dash of surrealism make a comeback in advertising.
Brands looking to experiment with humour and surrealism will likely find the solution is OOH – a medium with unlimited creative potential where they can let their imaginations run wild.
Last year, we saw the rise of CGI OOH videos that exemplified the shift towards the weird. Think, trains and buses with eyelashes, self-driving handbags and Big Ben in a puffer. The overlap of CGI graphics on real-world settings can capture attention and drive conversation.
However, while effective and impressive content, our recent Alfresco Life study showed 44% respondents were less impressed when they discovered an ad was CGI and not real. 46% respondents felt more positively towards an ad when they knew it was real – this was noticeably important for 18-34s where the figure is closer to 60%. So, when a surrealist aesthetic collides with the real world, people are intrigued and entertained. But doing it for real has greater value, for consumers and brands.
The surrealist aesthetic trend is also evident in much of the 3D DOOH we’ve seen. And it’s now possible to make this stunning anamorphic work interactive. Audiences can take control of the on-screen content as it responds to their input.
The 2024 Opportunity:
1. The return of humour and the emergence of a surreal aesthetic will lead to more incredible OOH campaigns
2. Explore the creative possibilities in OOH to land your brand’s distinctive personality and tone of voice
3. Enhance your OOH with new creative tools and techniques
4. Be surreal for real. Consider how you can show up in new, unexpected ways
Real-World Power
Audiences are back. And they’re living their lives outside.
Having human-led connections and real-world experiences will continue to be prioritised despite cost-of-living challenges. Being out and about puts people in a good mood. And with audiences on the up, leisure, social, shopping and travel environments all have a big role to play in 2024.
95% of people still shop instore weekly. For younger audiences shopping is as much a social pursuit as it is about buying things and brands should be actively targeting this group within retail environments to take advantage of the power of shared social experiences. For online brands, being visible in the real world plays an important role in building trust and consideration – vital during times of economic uncertainty.
Plus, there are new retail opportunities on the horizon thanks to the huge growth in DOOH screens in store and at point of purchase in grocery environments, where 85% people visit in person.
Commuting audiences also continue to grow with 81% of workers now commuting three or more days a week. And don’t forget, 60% of all m-commerce is undertaken while people are out of the home, so brands should include a call to action in their OOH creative as the opportunity to influence an online purchase during the commute is high.
The 2024 Opportunity:
1. Tap into the power of being present in the real world
2. Take advantage of growing audiences
3. Reach people when they’re happiest
4. Reach people when they’re together
Real-Time Resonance
An extra sprinkle of magic happens when you combine the power of the real-world with the real-time abilities of digital.
Dynamic and automated DOOH delivers personalisation at scale on a public, trusted, high-impact channel, and the technology now available to activate dynamic campaigns is real-time, seamless and cost-effective.
We have a year ahead full of big events and an ever-changing cultural landscape, so the possibilities for brands to show up in real-time and connect with audiences living their lives outside are endless. In 2024, context should be top of mind for every DOOH campaign.
Another way to take advantage of the power of real-time is by using new tech that enables interactive experiences that deliver instant impact. From real-time interactivity with 3D OOH to using Classic OOH to trigger an AR or spatial experience that the audience continues on their own device, the breadth of what you can create in OOH is varied and immense.
Coke Zero’s use of DOOH.com’s new ‘Connect’ technology illustrates the seamless integration of impactful real-world experiences with cutting-edge digital capabilities.
There are real-time opportunities in every campaign, and countless data triggers available to enhance a campaign’s context. In 2024, brands should be taking advantage of the power of combining a real-world experience with a real-time pay off. It’s not just about being seen, it’s about being felt, experienced, remembered, and often re-shared online to a new audience.
The 2024 Opportunity:
1. Think about the real-time opportunity for every campaign
2. Understand the wide variety of data triggers available to enhance campaign context
3. Take advantage of new interactive tech to create instant and memorable experiences
4. Experiment with layering PROOH over your core OOH
Hyper-Local Geolocation
Geolocation is set to be a big trend for marketers in 2024. No other channel owns location like OOH and with the demise of the cookie we expect to see an even greater shift towards hyper-local geotargeting this year.
OOH has always been a channel planned by geolocation and has never had to rely on personal identifiable data to be effective. But with a large proportion of impacts delivered within city centres (we spend half our waking time away from home), planners should be thinking beyond the home postcode and use smart data to understand how people move around and where they go.
Using Journeys, our geolocation behavioural planning platform, to select the most effective environments and formats for a campaign can deliver 50% more impacts. Journeys can ingest media agency and client first-party data to better understand where audiences are and how to target them in a trusted way. So, in a world where consumers want to connect without feeling like they’re being followed, OOH’s geolocation ability is the perfect tool for brands in 2024.
The 2024 Opportunity:
1. Geolocation in OOH allows brands to target people in a trusted way
2. Not all OOH impacts are equal, understand what different formats and environments deliver
3. If you take home postcode data and simply transfer this to OOH you’re missing a trick
4. Use your own data to create a point of difference
Proof of Purpose
Consumer expectations have changed how brands approach environmental and social responsibilities. For brands that want their media to be sustainable and inclusive, OOH is an easy and responsible choice to make in 2024.
As a one-to-many medium with vast reach, OOH is one of the most sustainable mediums on an emissions per impressions basis. It’s also a platform where brands can creatively inspire positive action.
Nearly 50p in every £1 spent on OOH goes back into local communities and public infrastructure. It provides life-saving equipment such as well-used defibrillators. And the OOH sites themselves positively impact the local environment with wildlife corridors, living roofs, moss walls and bee bus shelters. In 2024 we’ll see the next generation of digital screens replace older models increasing energy efficiency by up to 70% in some cases.
OOH is also the most inclusive channel. It reaches 97% of the population every single week and enables brands to normalise, educate and celebrate differences. Together.
The trusted broadcast nature of OOH is ideal for driving the necessary change to protect the future of our planet and communities, whether that’s encouraging a more eco-friendly way of life, reaching underrepresented groups or normalising and educating on the importance of inclusivity.
The 2024 Opportunity:
1. There is huge appetite amongst consumers for making sustainable choices
2. OOH can influence and change consumer behaviour
3. Make your advertising more inclusive by using OOH
4. Use OOH to deliver campaigns that make the world better
As these trends highlight, OOH’s traditional strengths such as real-world reach, public trust in the medium, and its inclusive nature, along with its inherent sustainability and contribution to public utilities are perfectly aligned with changing consumer behaviour. At the same time, new technology such as programmatic, AR and automated creative activation are offering new opportunities for advertisers both in terms of creativity and through more contextual opportunities lower down the sales funnel.
If you’d like more information about any of the topics covered here, please get in contact with your Kinetic team.
