How Effective is Billboard Advertising in the Digital Age?

With much of the marketing world focused on social media and mobile devices, some people wonder whether billboards are outdated as an advertising strategy. However, small businesses, big brands like McDonald’s and Coca-Cola, and tech companies like Netflix, Apple and Facebook continue to use them heavily.

Billboard advertising is not just surviving; its flourishing. Worldwide ad spend on out-of-home advertising is expected to reach $38 billion in 2018, up 3 per cent since last year, and up 35 per cent since 2010, according to figures by Zenith. While digital advertising has sucked investment out of print and radio advertising, billboard advertising continues to grow.

Why Billboard Advertising Will Always Be Relevant

People are always going to be spending time outside, including a significant amount of time commuting. That means there will always be opportunities for companies to make an impact and grow their brand using attention-capturing, visually appealing billboard advertising. From regional highways to busy city centres, millions of people look at billboards every day. Unlike digital advertising, people can’t skip, quickly scroll past, use ad-blocks or avoid billboards using premium subscriptions.

A Fast Growing Medium

Billboard advertising is part of the fastest non-internet ad media, outperforming TV for the past six years. The popularity of billboard advertising is precisely because digital advertising is so common-place now. It’s the same reasons cinema advertising is seeing a boom – companies are looking for a way to stick out from all the digital noise and reach a broad range of people.

Understanding the impact of billboard advertising is also getting easier as digital footprints and movile tell a precise picture of where we are and where we are spending. Companies can tell when people see a billboard ad and respond online. It’s for these reasons that digital companies like Google and Netflix are not just clients of outdoor advertising but are starting to make their own investments into it.

Innovations in Billboard Advertising

Billboard advertising is over a century old, but it has changed dramatically. A medium that was once static images with simple captions now also feature interactive and electronic billboards. They are now everywhere, moving beyond iconic spaces such as time square in NYC and Shinjuku to highways, the side of buildings, bust shelters, public benches, airports, shopping centres, train stations and more.

Digital billboards can show video, change images every 30 seconds, live stream events and show content from social media. These images can be changed remotely, allowing greater ease and flexibility. Some billboards are interactive, with sensors and codes people can scan with their smartphone that takes them to a website. Companies can be much more creative with how they reach customers in all demographics using these latest innovations.

Billboard Advertising in Melbourne

Based in Melbourne, Civic Media offers a range of managed outdoor advertising products across Australia including static billboards, digital billboards, street furniture ads and civic guides. We can help you get your message in front of the right people with large, impactful billboard advertising printed in high quality PVC. Call us today on 03 8580 6091 or contact us online to find out more.