OOH provides intense consumer engagement as compared to TV or digital: Irvinder Kaur Ray

For the longest time, brands have been functioning OOH advertising to expand their market reach. To further provide a platform to the OOH industry, e4m hosted the Neons OOH conference to bring industry leaders, brands and advertisers under one roof. On Day 1 of e4m NEONS OOH Conference on May 17, Irvinder Kaur Ray, Executive Director, Risk Advisory, Deloitte India, spoke on how investments in immersive and DOOH advertising campaigns give more ROI to the brand and how the OOH industry has evolved globally. Ray shared insights on the topic ‘Media’s Role in the New Ecosystem of Experiential and Outdoor Advertising.’

Ray mentioned how OOH advertising has evolved exponentially over the last few decades. She also spoke about the OOH Adex report which bounced back to 4% in the year 2022. Moreover, while addressing the agenda, Ray highlights multiple roles of OOH advertising for brands that include: location targeting, Attention-grabbing, reach multiplier, building brand association, call to action at the last mile and omnichannel strategy.

Focusing more on how OOH advertising has become more effective and efficient today, she said, “The OOH advertising provides an intense consumer engagement as compared to television or digital. Also, brands use creative styles of marketing content while fabricating campaigns which include: QR codes, website URLs, coupons and much more. Furthermore, choosing the right location for OOH campaigns is essentially important to target the right customers.”

Speaking about how brands have upgraded the style of content and graphics using AI tools in the last couple of years, Ray mentioned how the automobile brand Baleno launched digital billboards giving a more realistic experience to the consumers using programmatic. Moreover, Ray defines how Baleno using digital out-of-home advertising (DOOH) targets all metro cities including Delhi, Mumbai, Pune and Gurugram, reaching 3.9 million people approximately. She also mentioned how the ad awareness percentage of Nexa jumped to 35% leveraging the programmatic DOOH.

Quoting how KFC grabbed customer attention using billboards, she said, “KFC’s unique style of playing with pictures and graphics helps the brand in seeking customer attention span.” Further talking about how billboards solve real-life problems, Ray mentioned how the countries facing water scarcity are using billboards both for advertising purposes and storing water to serve people.

Sharing how OOH advertising drives the brand’s message, Ray says, “Brand message can be portrayed in an alive manner if the brand uses innovation and unique styles of designing campaigns. Also, brands can bridge the gap between the physical and digital world using virtual reality OOH campaigns.” She also added how Nike, Tesco Home Plus and some other brands have been designing innovation campaigns using virtual reality over the last few years. “Tesco Home Plus Brand is a brand from South Korea and is doing an entire retail business using virtual reality and DOOH campaigns,” said Ray while addressing the virtual reality campaigns.

Mentioning how luxury brands are using OOH, she said, “Luxury brands like Jackman, Emporio Armani, and Michael Kors using virtual reality campaigns to create customer engagement, traffic and conversion.” 

In the concluding remarks, Ray said, “The brand's advertising becomes more powerful and impactful when the brands use OOH and DOOH in combination with other media vehicles. Also, besides enhancing traffic and sales, DOOH gives more ROI to the brand.”

The conference saw industry leaders speaking about new practices in OOH, how OOH fits in the world of macro advertising, the aesthetics of OOH, the power of content and design, and many other agendas related to OOH advertising.