How to Use Innovative Outdoor Advertising Technology in 2024

Outdoor advertising as a way to connect with audiences has been around in various forms since the early 1800s. In the digital age of today, new technologies in Digital Out-of-Home are quickly advancing the outdoor advertising scene. 

Leverage these outdoor technologies and watch the impact and effectiveness of your Out-of-Home campaigns soar.

Drovo Media has created a full guide to different types of innovative outdoor advertising technology today and how to use them in 2024. Continue reading to learn more.

Augmented Reality Outdoor Advertising Technology

Augmented reality is an interactive enhanced version of the real-world that comes with digital visual elements, sounds, and various other sensory stimuli.

Immersive AR advertising technology adds value to an OOH campaign by linking the physical and virtual worlds. Contextually relevant AR OOH ads foment audience interaction and create easily accessible and memorable experiences that place your brands at the forefront of people’s minds. 

On-street audiences are drawn towards highly visual outdoor campaigns and usually prefer to view products in detail before committing to buying them. Advertisers are now waking up to the benefits of running Augmented Reality Out-of-Home campaigns, as a result, two-thirds of advertising agencies are now increasing their AR usage in campaigns. 

Now let’s look into a few shining examples of high-impact campaigns that used Augmented Reality technology. 

Examples of AR Outdoor Campaigns

Pepsi Max’s AR Bus Shelter in London

An Augmented Reality Pepsi Max ad on an everyday bus stop screen in London was a hit with audiences and achieved the ultimate goal of all OOH advertising planners: people stopping to film the ad in awe on their mobiles. 

Pepsi used AR in the campaign to transform the bus shelter display into a window that brought incredible breathtaking scenarios into the real-world. AR on the bus stop screen managed to give audiences the impression that tentacles were reaching from beneath the pavement and breaking slabs, a wild tiger started roaming the street freely, multiple spaceships were flying overhead, and more. 

The Pepsi campaign proves the powerful impact that Augmented Reality Digital-Out-of-Home brand campaigns have on audiences.

The Burger King ‘Burn That Ad’ Campaign

Burger King leveraged AR OOH advertising tactics in their ‘burn that ad’ campaign whereby street audiences saw Burger King’s competitor ads blow up in flames on their screens when they took a photo with their smartphone. 

The objective of this campaign was to use Augmented Reality to increase audience engagement and interaction with Burger King as a brand, and of course, to discredit market rivals a little bit. 

Outdoor audiences were incentivised to take photos by the offer of a free big whopper burger from Burger King. An all-round savvy AR technology campaign.

NHS Blood Donation Campaign

The NHS launched an Augmented Reality interactive campaign to convey the positive healing effects of blood donations to audiences in central London and Birmingham. 

Alongside NHS staff on-site ready to perform live blood donations, interactive billboards were set up in Birmingham and London showing real-life patients in need of blood requesting passersby to help them fill their virtual blood bags. Virtual donors then donated blood using smartphones to put IVs into their arms, and they could then see the virtual blood bag filling up on the digital billboard thanks to AR.

This is a shining example of how to use outdoor advertising technology as a force for good and a way to encourage people to take positive action.

Faux Out-of-Home Campaigns Using CGI

Computer Generated Imagery technology works wonders these days and makes scenarios appear highly realistic and believable to audiences. A prime example of a ‘faux OOH’ CGI-generated ad that garnered a lot of traction on social media was the London Underground Maybelline Eyelashes ad, which fooled many people into believing a mascara brush fitted onto a tube train was hitting an eyelash make up wand on the underground. 

Although it looked like a satisfying and novel OOH idea, the images were superimposed and put on by CGI. This faux OOH advertising stunt was great for Maybelline as a brand and got people talking about their products. 

Another controversial CGI FOOH ad which got audiences talking was the Griselda Netflix promotional truck ad.

3D Hologram Outdoor Advertising Technology

Another new outdoor advertising technology making waves today is 3D hologram OOH campaigns. Holograms are particularly memorable because of just how realistic and lifelike they are to outdoor audiences. 

3D hologram campaigns are a way to make a fantastic first impression and attract new customers by generating immediate interest in products or services with on-street audiences.

Dynamic On-Vehicle Screens

Transit Media advertising is impactful in urban areas because it does a stellar job of elevating your reach and spreading your brand messaging. Transit campaigns blend into the urban environment and are unmissable to audiences. 

Leveraging cutting-edge DOOH transit media technology positively impacts the efficiency of outdoor campaigns. Drovo’s high-definition dynamic on-vehicle screens resonate with on-street audiences by incorporating live, real-world triggers such as: 

• The time of day
• Weather conditions, e.g. showing advertisements of waterproofing coats when it is raining heavily outside
• Specific geolocation
• Local live events
• Changes in street-level footfall

Our dual-sided on-vehicle screens are built with best-in-class technology to offer the latest capabilities in dynamic creative and targeting. A format that will certainly draw attention to your brand!

Shadowfencing 

Brands in 2024 need to ensure their OOH campaign efforts also lead to an uplift in customer engagements across digital platforms, and the advantage of modern outdoor advertising technology is its ability to combine offline OOH and digital advertising. 

For Drovo’s UK-wide full wrap taxi advertising campaigns, we provide mobile retargeting via shadowfencing technology, meaning complimentary ads can be served to the mobile devices of audiences who were exposed to your taxi campaign. Shadowfencing tech enables you to amplify the value of your OOH with measurable digital engagement. 

In addition, the retargeting component allows you to send a series of relevant follow up digital ads to on-street outdoor audiences and deliver ads to household devices after initial exposure, including

• Connected TVs 
• Laptops
• Tablets 

Innovative outdoor advertising technologies are a toolset that advertisers must embrace and use to their benefit in 2024.