2023 Themes in Out of Home Media: Creativity at the Forefront
2023 Themes in Out of Home Media: Creativity at the Forefront
With continued media fragmentation, brands are focusing on creative advertisements to stand out from the 5,000-10,000 messages the average consumer receives each day. Out of Home (“OOH”) advertising pushes the limits of the possible when it comes to both architectural and visual design. Consumer audiences are consistently engaged by OOH media with brands producing creative advertising content. Operators and municipalities are also incorporating artwork between advertisements.
CREATIVITY IN SIGN STRUCTURE
A major development in OOH advertising revolves around more customized and tailored sign structures than the traditional 14’x48’ bulletin. For example, the City of West Hollywood recently completed its second round of the Sunset Boulevard Design Excellence Screening competition, where applicants submitted proposals for new digital billboards on the Strip. The City selected 31 submissions to move forward in the process. A key criterion for the City was a focus on creative architecture, with several of the City’s selections designed to look like cultural landmarks. Architectural innovations included harmonizing lighting fixtures with curved billboards and / or floral integration. Other displays featured ingenious technical design, including invisible frame technology or a “media cube” comprised of integrated LED panels. Some displays coming to the Sunset Strip will be larger in scale than anything existing in the area at prime viewing locations for travelers entering West Hollywood.
Times Square has also emerged as a showcase for uniquely structured media displays. Several locations utilize balanced vertical paneling, allowing for advertisements on individual boards, as well as multiple screen “dominations” that run across multiple boards of the same size and length. Other displays offer collections of digital screens presented in a more disjointed manner that make each advertisement stand out. We expect distinctiveness in structure to be a major focus in sign creation going forward.
ARTWORK INTERTWINED WITH OOH MEDIA DISPLAYS TO ACCELERATE IN THE FUTURE
Media traditionally reserved for advertising is increasingly promoting artwork through intermittent displays on digital boards. New York’s advertising kiosks, which provide free Wi-Fi hotspots and charging stations, launched a campaign focused on displaying local artwork. This allows artists within the city to express their cultural backgrounds by depicting unique scenes, people, icons or sentiments that they bring to life through their artwork. Other operators curate digital art programming to improve overall engagement with artwork displayed between advertisements. The pitch to advertisers relates to the increased engagement that comes from displaying public art. For new displays on the Sunset Strip, the City of West Hollywood is planning on requiring a coordinated art display hourly and at sunset each day. This will create a digital art journey for consumers to experience as they travel down the street. Requirements like this one are often used by municipalities to justify new digital displays in places where they may not have been previously approved. We expect art use withing OOH to continue to grow with time.
Click below to read the article from the Media Group.
