An Overview of Digital Billboard Advertising in the UK

Until the early 2000s, billboards meant printed bricks-and-mortar Out-of-Home advertisements, and according to the Out-of-Home Advertising Association of America, the earliest leasing of billboards took place in 1867. However, nowadays digital billboards are a linchpin of the ever-growing DOOH advertising industry.

You now see digital billboard advertising everywhere, and there are thousands of them in the UK. Some digital billboards even have touchscreen technology to encourage interactivity with members of the public. 

In the graph below from Route, you can see in the column on the far right that the ‘impacts’ for the digital screen campaigns in Quarter 2 of 2023 (the total number of times an ad was seen – including multiple times by the same person) reached over a staggering 765 million.

At Drovo, our on-vehicle advertising screens and measurable taxi campaigns have just led to us receiving 3 million in funding from Maven Capital, other investors backing us include Change Ventures, Venturian, and Caygan Capital. So, we definitely know a thing or two about digital advertising screens and the high-impact they have on Out-of-Home audiences. 

Here, we provide an overview of digital billboard advertising in the UK. 

Digital Billboards Placed on Buildings

The United Kingdom is home to a diverse range of breathtaking buildings, from modern architecture to the Tudor, Georgian, Edwardian, Victorian, and Elizabethan eras, the list goes on! 

Digital billboard advertising in the UK is sometimes purposely placed on the facades of iconic buildings so they can integrate and blend in with the urban architectural environment. The digital billboards in Piccadilly Circus, London, are a prime example of digital billboard advertising on buildings in the UK. 

Run a digital billboard campaign on Picadilly Circus, and you are assured high reach and plenty of impressions thanks to it being on a busy junction in London’s iconic west end. The Coca Cola ad has been on Piccadilly Circus for the longest, since 1955.

At Drovo, our car billboard advertising screens have the largest street level audience. Not only do our digital car billboards move with your audience and maximise reach and impressions, but they also do so at your audience’s eye level.

Roadside Digital Billboard Advertising

Traffic levels are high in the UK, many of us use motorways, busy streets, and A roads regularly to commute to work, visit family and friends, and go about our daily lives. The 2022 National Road Traffic Projections Report from the Department of Transport said the range of projected traffic growth between 2025 and 2060 is 8% to 39%. 

With these high levels of road traffic in mind, many UK brands go for roadside digital billboard advertising in an attempt to grasp road users’ attention and raise brand awareness while they’re stuck in traffic. When entering London on the M4, you will notice an array of roadside digital billboards placed alongside the M4 targeting traffic between Heathrow Airport, the West and central London, including the ‘M4 Tower’ with 50 metres of advertising space. 

On-vehicle Digital Billboard Advertising in the UK

What about adding on-vehicle digital billboard advertising to complement your roadside advertising efforts and improve your DOOH campaign results? Vehicle top digital billboard screens use the latest geotargeting technology to display the right ads in the right location for brands and advertisers. 

There’s nothing better than being able to serve ads in real-time that chime with Out-of-Home audiences and the on-street environment they are in contact with. Show outdoor audiences ads that speak to them, and they will be more inclined to engage with them. A Neuroanalytic Consumer Research Study found that the most contextually relevant ads received 43% higher engagement levels, as well as 2.2 times better ad recall.

On-vehicle screens are able to respond to serve audiences with contextually relevant ads in real-time by responding to real-world triggers, such as

• Changes in the weather, e.g. showing light clothes and sun protection products for brands whenever the temperature gets above 22 C, or showing audiences winter clothing selections whenever it drops below 5 C
• Dayparting – showing products that are particularly relevant at different times of the day, e.g. breakfast deals 6am-10am, sandwiches and salads at 12-3pm, and evening meals at 5pm-10pm (takeaways, restaurants to visit, supermarket brand messaging to target evening post work food shoppers)
• Live event footfall fluctuations- e.g. showing a car billboard advertising Adèle’s new album outside of a live Taylor Swift concert as a way of Adele capturing the eyeballs of Taylor Swift concert goers on the local streets and making them think about her market competitor’s (Adèle’s) latest album.

Unmissable Advertising

In recent years, digital billboard advertising screens have been incorporated into streets and pavements, making them harder for members of the public to miss. Why not combine fixed-down on-street digital billboards on D6s, bus stops, buildings, pavements, and roadsides with dynamic digital OOH media that moves with on-street audiences, like the private vehicle screen campaigns we offer at Drovo?

At Drovo, we wholeheartedly believe that our on-vehicle digital billboard campaigns enhance the impact of static digital billboards on audiences. Urban audiences are constantly moving and weaving in and out of small urban spaces, and with our on-vehicle campaigns, you will be able to reach them in every side street and the little spaces where bus advertisements and standard digital billboards aren’t able to reach, thus maximising your impact and reach.