Outdoor advertising and signage has always been a staple in branding and advertising campaigns with businesses. It is one of the most traditional methods of getting people interested in or curious in your product/service. But what is the relevance of this with other competing mediums in the industry and how is outdoor advertising indeed, staying relevant? In this research I have discovered new technology and unique purposes for existing technology. From digital signage to social interaction in advertising campaigns, this industry has kept up and is still a major part of a campaign. I also uncover emerging technology and uses in a digital world. So lets start with the “Why?”

Why do businesses even use outdoor advertising? With good reason, businesses that use outdoor advertising want their product/service to have a wide spread, getting as many people within their target market to know about it. Outdoor advertising such as billboards, Adshel/bus stop signs, shopfront signage and vehicular signage are all effective in their own way. But how do they affect the general public? Get ready for some statistic crunching. In February 2006, Australia’s major outdoor companies joined to conduct an outdoor advertising campaign called “POW” — Proving Outdoor Works — to study and show the effectiveness of outdoor advertising. Over 91% claimed to have seen the POW campaign during February, 89% agreed that it was eye-catching and 82% agreed that it was impactful. This reflects on the industry itself with 70% of public seeing a large amount of outdoor advertising daily. 65% say that it influences their decision making. With technology on the rise, 89% agreed that the industry is “much better than it used to be.”

What is the role of technology in the industry? With advances in computing power and size there are quite a few technologies that directly affect the outdoor advertising industry. Starting with smaller, cheaper computer systems. These improve production costs which means agencies can generate more units for the same cost. This also opens doors for smaller businesses to display advertising on these systems with big business. Not only are the systems more cost effective, but the display screens as well. Meaning that point-of-sale displays can provide a more effective platform to show their products in action. Other advancements have been in billboard displays, large LED displays give the opportunity to show multiple ads in rotation on the one piece of “advertising real estate”. This has positive and negative effects, as it allows multiple businesses to have the spot, but it means that the public have competing imagery when they are viewing and don’t create a connection with one business to that spot. There also has been technology that is user focused, such as facial recognition, geo-location/proximity, motion sense and social/smartphone interaction. These technologies can be a great unique opportunity for businesses to experiment in, making them pioneers of that particular technology. Face recognition, developed by NEC can identify a users gender, ethnicity and approx age with 85/90% accuracy. Most popular use is to display ads based on gender eg. Perfume ad for a woman. Geo-location is a way for the interaction to happen within a proximity to the medium.

What involves the public? User Interactivity has been a popular method for businesses to maintain a connection with the public. Even for very well established businesses, they use these methods to create new and exciting advertising, generating more rapport. Big businesses such as McDonalds have used geo-location technology. They launched a billboard campaign in Stockholm called “Pick n Play”. Users would download an app or visit a website that would have them play a game of Pong that would display on the billboard. If they won, they received a coupon. This game is only playable when you are close enough to the sign, creating a connection between user and medium. Other uses of interactivity include face recognition, motion sense and social media connectivity. Streets Magnum created a billboard that detected the smile of a passerby, inviting them to eat the ice cream displayed, it would detect mouth movements, simulating it being eaten. It would then let the user upload a picture of them to the Streets Facebook Page for their interactivity.

With all this technology, what is relevant to the industry? The simple emergence of technologies doesn’t make effective signage and advertising. Many have failed to deliver their message without proper execution or a weak concept. It takes a unique idea to make the technology work for the advertising and this is still the case with traditional advertising and signage. Traditional billboards are still relevant within a campaign due to their lower cost and spread. The ability to “stand out” in a sea of billboards and signs is the unique message or communication with the user, not the technology. User interaction and its social media connection are becoming more and more popular, as this creates a method for the business to gauge response throughout the life cycle of the ad. This also creates an ongoing connection with the user as they continue to use their social media. There are a few technologies that haven’t hit the mark as hard as hoped, as they either provide too much of a tech gap with users or a lack of general knowledge with what these provide to the user. Lets take QR codes for example, these provide a “link” for a user to capture with an app on their phone, directing them to external information. These codes, don’t give guidance that there is extra information to obtain, unless outlined in addition. This does allow the user to view the rest of the ad on their own terms, however most users aren’t aware that you can do this. Another is the emergence of NFC, similar to Bluetooth tech, is provides a wireless connection between the ad and the user. This can transfer files to the user quickly. Yet again, users aren’t familiar with this tech, therefore the communication isn’t effective.

So, we’ve established what technologies have emerged, what is popular, what is ineffective and how users interact with these. The most important feature with outdoor advertising and signage is clear communication and long-lasting connection with the public. Technology can create attention, or curiosity, and then it is up to the message of the ad to engage the user and maintain a connection. Advertising will continue to diversify with technology and concepts to further connect the public to the brand, and to each other.