Future of Old School Billboards

While the world is evolving every second, what do you think would be the future of billboards in the next few years?

Based on the changes that are frequently occurring in Out Of Home Media, we might see advertisements that will be displayed exclusively for us, inḍividually, according to our moods, gender, age and other such factors.

We have created a list of few possible changes that you might get to see in Out Of Home within a short span of time:

Interactive OOH

We all see and ignore hundreds of hoardings on a daily basis. But what if a hoarding you are passing by, starts talking to you? Will you still be able to ignore it that easily? A lot of billboards already have cameras and antennas attached to them which help them identify their surroundings and react to the changes that are occurring. Remember the Swedish Billboard that showed a man who began to cough whenever someone smoked nearby. Then the person who smoked was shown anti-smoking ads and products that would help him to quit smoking.

In the future, sensors will also be added in addition to the pre-installed cameras and antennas. While the cameras and antennas only identify and react to the subject, the sensors will enable the advertising sites to interact with them. In simple words, hoardings will not remain the large posters but will get a human touch, giving you a more personalised experience. When a hoarding or any other OOH media site gives it’s viewers a personalized ad or reaction, especially for them, it creates an emotional bond with the customer showing him that he matters. When the customer feels important, he is more likely to buy that product. It attracts more customers, increases customer retention and also improves user-experience.

Reading smartphones

A lot of anonymous data tracking techniques are used to identify human behaviour in order to make out of home advertising sites more relevant to users. These techniques assist their clients with better targeting. While we spend most of our time in our smartphones, who in the world would know us better than them? For the same reason, our smartphones will be used as a key to increased relevancy, in future. Billboards and hoardings will be able to scan and read your mobile phones to dig into the apps you use the most, social media interactions along with the products and services you show the most interest in; and create demographic data instantaneously. Imagine you have a bag added in your wishlist and you see a discount offer in the same bag the next day. The chances of you buying that bag will increase automatically. Similarly, the data collected from the smartphones of users will provide insights about the types of ads that will prove to be most useful for the audience. The main focus would be on the online shopping apps used by the viewers and their wishlists; to deliver exactly what you need without showing you anything that is not worth your time. any garbage. Imagine you need a pair of sports shoes for a race which you will now be able to get without having to enter a showroom with tempting high heels that would either tempt you to spend unnecessarily or else waste your time.

AR Advertising

Augmented Reality is a technology that delivers the elements of the virtual world into our real world, enhancing our visual, audible as well as emotional experiences. While AR has already made its remarkable presence and it will continue to grow bigger and better in the future. One of the biggest advantages of AR in OOH is that advertising is not limited to billboards, hoardings or any other such advertising site but can be done almost anywhere and everywhere, opening enormous opportunities for creative agencies and vendors.

Seeing continuous advertisements can be annoying for customers sometimes but it is not the case with AR. Since these advertisements are fun to watch and experience, people don’t mind the new spaces they are occupying and often enjoy them. By using screens and video equipment, AR creates imaginary scenes that you cannot experience in real life. It is entirely dependent on imagination and creativity. It can grow and become whatever you think. Imagine sitting in the scorching sun in Delhi and still getting the complete feel of beaches in Goa along with budget-friendly travelling packages to the same destination. If you are a woman, you know nothing can be more difficult than finding the right shade of lip colour, what if you get to see how a lip colour would look on you? The chances of you going back without buying become none. These were some basic examples of AR advertising, as already mentioned AR can grow as per your creativity and imagination.

All these changes will make a huge impact on the old school billboards but the static billboards are not going anywhere. No matter how many technologies are introduced, old static billboards are here to stay. All these technologies and innovations we talked about will only enhance static billboards but will never be able to replace the classic old static billboards.