Charateristics of Out-of-Home (OOH) media
Out-of-home (OOH) media encompasses advertising and promotional content that reaches consumers while they are outside their homes. This type of media includes a wide range of formats and can be found in various public spaces, such as transit areas, highways, and urban centers.
Wide reach: Out-of-Home (OOH) media is traditionally an awareness-building medium. OOH media has the potential to reach a large and diverse audience, including both local residents and visitors to an area.
High visibility: Placements in high-traffic areas ensure high visibility and frequent exposure, which can lead to increased brand recognition and recall. This is particularly true for large-format options like billboards.
Limited targeting options: Compared to other media, OOH's audience targeting options are limited, mainly consisting of geographic targeting options.
Out-of-Home media formats
1) Large billboards along highways
Below is an example of a large highway advertisment (source: Out of Home Advertising Association of America)
2) OOH ads along public transportation routes, for example bus stops, subways stations, train stations
Below is an example of a bus stop advertisment (source: Out of Home Advertising Association of America)
3) OOH ads at more targeted locations, such as malls, gyms, sports stadiums
Below is an example of an advertisment at a mall (source: campaign)
4) Other
In addition to traditional printed OOH ads, OOH can also be implemented digital signage (also called Digital OOH, or DOOH). DOOH can often also be bought programmatically.
Metrics and data dimensions for OOH
Below is a list of typical data dimensions and metrics for OOH:
Dimensions | Metrics |
Advertiser attributes (at least name) Campaign attributes (name, id, type, timing..) Time (Year, month, week, day, time..) Ad attributes Geography details More detailed Placement details
| Net Spend: What was the spend on the ads, after discounts (e.g. seasonal or other discounts)
Gross Spend: What was the spend on the ads (without taking media discounts in to account) |
Incorporating OOH in Marketing Mix Modeling
While data specifications for Marketing Mix Modeling can vary depending on the context, a good starting point for OOH media is to use Gross Spend as an input metric in the model.
Gross Spend is typically better than Net Spend, because Net Spend can change even if activity level would remain constant, if discounts are given to the advertiser.
Gross Spend is typically a better metric than contact-based metrics, because it can be difficult to make contact-based metrics comparable across the broad variety of OOH ads.
Data integration considerations for OOH data in Marketing Mix Modeling
Many digital data today can be fetched from ad platforms automatically using data connectors, but for OOH, there is no single standard platform to connect to. For this reason it is highly important to define as early as possible how OOH data is delivered to the Marketing Mix Model. Main option include:
Connecting MMM to advertiser's data warehouse (if advertiser maintains media data in a data warehouse)
Connecting MMM to a advertiser's media agency's data warehouse (if media agency has such solution)
Using an pre-defined excel-template for maintaining the data, which is regularly uploaded to the MMM solution, example here
Media planning for OOH
When conducting media planning, media agencies often consider following metircs:
Opportunity To Contact (OTC) = How many people theoretically have the possibility to see the ad
Visibility Adjusted Contact (VAC) = How many among the OTC are estimated to have an eye-contact with the ad