Why Anyone Should Give a Damn About OOH-Mobile Advertising
I started at Blue Bite a mere four months ago. Up until my employment, I knew relatively little about the mobile technology world. Sure, I knew about WiFi, SMS, NFC and QR, but what I didn’t know was the extent to which these technologies could be employed (nor did I know about other possible mobile tech options such as beacons and geofencing). However, as I became involved with these technologies on an everyday basis, I began to realize the full potential and capabilities of these devices and services.
At a glance, mobile Out-of-Home marketing may seem counterintuitive. Why would consumers tap or scan QR and NFC tags? Why would a consumer pay attention to a display banner or notification? After all, we are all too familiar with the notion of “x-ing” out banner ads and impatiently awaiting “skip ad” buttons. That said, why would consumers voluntarily engage with advertisements, as is the method behind mobile-OOH?
I’ll tell you why.
Because the beauty of mobile-OOH advertising lies in what is offered to consumers. Mobile-OOH advertising is not a pesky advertisement for something that people do not want; rather it is something of value that every consumer would happily tap into — if only they knew the value they’d be receiving.
To be fair, I did not know the value of this type of advertising until I started working for Blue Bite. So to give a snapshot, here are three examples of the thousands of ways these techs can be implemented:
• mTAG (Blue Bite’s dual NFC and QR technology) can be programmed to give consumers access to exclusive brand content
• Beacons deployed in-store can provide shoppers with a unique shopping experience like virtual shopping assistants and outfit ideas
• Geofencing can target competitor brands and divert consumers to their own brand by sending offers and discounts to consumers’ smartphones
For these very reasons — for the fact that these various technologies can be creatively manipulated in any which way to reach consumers on mobile devices, where 53% of online shoppers now do their buying[1], by the way — is why brands should give a damn about mobile-OOH marketing. Moreover, the uniqueness of the marriage between mobile and OOH is that brands can reach consumers where they spend most of their digital eyeball time (mobile), and where consumers spend most of their waking hours (OOH).
If that is not convincing enough, let’s look at some of these stats:
• Nearly $1 trillion — 28% — of all retail sales were influenced by shopping-related mobile searches[2]
• Click-through rate on beacon ads is about 10x what it is on standard mobile display ads[3]
• 65% of consumers receive push notifications and open them[4]
Of course, with all of its benefits and impressive statistics, mobile-OOH does have its obstacles too. I would identify the biggest challenge to all of this — to brands favorably reaching their consumers, and consumers happily engaging with brands to receive valuable content and information — as education. Mobile advertisements have a bad rap; consumers have been conditioned to assume that advertisements served to them on their mobile devices are of the “annoying variety.” To consumers, mobile ads are seen as the obstacle keeping them from their content.
Luckily, this challenge is one that can be remedied. By presenting to consumers the possibilities of opting in to this type of advertising, by showing them its benefits and what they’re missing out on, we can convince consumers and brands of the good in mobile-OOH advertising. We need to show them that these mobile ads are not obstacles, but are actually gateways to their content.
But we can’t do it alone.
All aboard,
Rachel Furst
Director of Communications
Blue Bite
[1] Ipsos MediaCT, Google Post holiday Shopping Intentions Study, January 2015, n=1,167, January 2014, n=1,077.
[2] Deloitte, “Navigating the New Digital Divide: Capitalizing on Digital Influence in Retail,” May 2015.
[3] Bill Conn, “Beacon Technology: What Marketers Need to Know for 2015,” LinkedIn, December 3, 2014.
[4] Apps-builder.com: http://bit.ly/1MQbhg3.
