The World of OOH
What is OOH? It is short for Out of Home Advertising. The term refers to advertising that is directed to the public when not at home. This is a pre-internet term that broadly refers to billboards and signs that are in public view. The term OOH is meant to distinguish the media from television, radio and print advertising.
Traditional static OOH media includes billboards, benches, bus shelters, signs posted on vehicles and signs on kiosks or other fixtures such as posters in lavatories or medical offices. Because of the advent of digital technology the industry now refers to S-OOH and D-OOH commonly for static OOH and digital OOH.
Advertising on computers, mobile devices or social media are not considered to be part of the OOH industry.
OOH Industry Reading
| Billboard Insider | The Drum |
| Marketing Drive | Campaign |
| OOH Today | Digital Signage Connection |
| Digital Signage Pulse | OOH on Wikipedia |
Is OOH a Big Industry?
Yes. In 2018 Outdoor Advertising Association of America reported that the industry’s revenues amounted to $7.7 billion US. The revenue total marks a record all-time high for OOH with 31 consecutive quarters of growth.
How Does it All Work?
Companies hire advertising agencies to create advertising campaigns. The agencies contact media owners to purchase time on billboards or screens. The OOH owners propose campaigns that best meet the campaign’s needs.
| Static Strengths | Digital Strengths |
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| Static Weaknesses | Digital Weaknesses |
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More reading about the advantages and disadvantages of static and digital advertising. – Advantages and Disadvantages of S-OOH and D-OOH
Who Owns the Billboards?
Media owners own the billboards.
They rent out space on their billboards. These are what we call campaigns. Whole media owners may own the hardware they typically do not own the land where the assets are installed. OOH media companies lease space on that land from building owners and pay the owners fees that are in part calculated on the value of the campaigns.
In the case of civic space such as street pillars or sign locations on public transport the municipal agency governing those properties contracts the management of these out to OOH companies.
Teamwork
Sales users create proposals by checking for availability and then generate those proposals in PDFs for their customers. Sales managers approve the contracts and any special discounts that may be offered.
The next phases of the business processes take place in Splash. This is where you come in.
The scheduling team turns the contract into an actual working campaign. The individual signs are chosen, the time reserved and the artwork assigned.
- Static Campaigns – The Operations Manager reviews the work orders and coordinates the work crews to ensure that the copy is installed correctly by bill posters.
- Digital Campaigns – Schedulers upload and configure the designs so that the different multimedia players controlling the digital signs play the ads. Ads run in loops, for example, showing eight spots a minute. Some digital signs use different loops at different times of day.
What's Programmatic?
D-OOH can publish the availability of their digital assets to third parties rather like airlines publishing the availability of unsold seats on routes to travel web sites.
- These third parties broker that availability.
- The practical result is more revenue as global buyers have access to unsold inventory of participating D-OOH media owners 24 hours a day.
Broadsign Ayuda supports programmatic services though third-party integration.
After the Campaign
Accounting users use the Broadsign Ayuda Finance tool to generate invoices, manage billing rules, and reconcile credits and schedules. Broadsign Ayuda does not manage invoices itself, rather it makes available information to the financial systems of your company.
Why do we Call People Bill Posters? Why Bill? Who was this Bill gent?
In the 1300s, a bille was used in Medieval French to mean a written statement. This came from Latin where bulla meant a decree or other type of sealed document.
Even today proposed legislation are still referred to as bills in the English speaking world.
Bill as a written statement detailing articles sold entered linguistic usage from the 1400s. By the 1570s our modern meaning of a notice of something was emerging. This meant notice to pay, as we still use it today but also bill also mean public notice. This is how handbill for flyers and bill posting for signage entered the English language.
Here is a photograph of a bill poster dated 1891. The clothes and equipment haven't much changed.
Advertising Goes Back A Long Way
The oldest ad in the world is currently in the British Museum. It is more than 3,000 years old and comes from the city of Thebes, which is in Modern Egypt. It is a papyrus from a seller of fabrics called Hapu.
