5 Ways Out-of-Home Advertising Can Uplevel Your Back-to-School Campaigns

Last year’s back-to-school shopping season was defined by two trends. The first: increased spending. Families with elementary and high school-aged students were on track to spend over $37 billion in 2021, up from the $33 billion they spent in 2020, while spending for college-aged students topped $70 billion. The second trend: consumers kicked off their shopping earlier, taking many advertisers by surprise.

As brands and retailers gear up for a return to the classroom this fall, compelling, eye-catching creative will be key to winning over consumers being inundated by ads. Brands looking to stand out from the crowd are turning to out-of-home (OOH) advertising, a medium that’s increasingly catching the attention of millennial and Gen Z shoppers.

Here are five ways advertisers can uplevel ad campaigns with OOH to capture their share of back-to-school spending this summer and early fall:

1. Leverage data to reach your target back-to-school audience.

The future of OOH is data-driven campaigns. That is, creative, data-led OOH campaigns that deliver highly relevant content directly to target audiences. Accelerated digital transformation and technology advances in outdoor advertising, like online OOH buying platforms, mean advertisers can leverage robust, granular-level data to plan and execute high-performing campaigns.

From audience movement patterns and audience purchasing habits to market characteristics, historical ad-unit pricing and performance metrics, advertisers can access a data-fueled toolkit to determine where to advertise, in what format, and with the creative most likely to capture the attention of back-to-school shoppers.

2. Become an expert in measuring and attributing your OOH campaigns.

OOH in the past was seen as a branding exercise, but today it’s a leading performance channel with data insights and measurement capabilities that rival what digital can offer. Today’s OOH advertisers can measure campaigns far beyond the demographic-specific awareness metrics of impressions, reach and frequency. Essentially, if it can be measured, online OOH buying platforms measure it.

Across every format in static or digital form, advertisers can track and isolate at the unit level. Zeroing in on an OOH unit, advertisers can track exposures. Merged with conversion data (i.e., app events and in-store and online traffic and sales), back-to-school advertisers can conduct attribution analysis and track real-time performance key performance indicators to see what units are performing best.

That’s just scratching the surface. The measurement capabilities of online OOH buying platforms allow advertisers to measure accurate return on investment through lift analysis, track social media mentions, measure the “halo effect” or indirect impact of campaigns, and more. Equipped with this data, advertisers can make in-flight campaign changes to achieve the best results.

3. Embrace dynamic creative to optimize digital advertising content.

OOH is on an upward trajectory with no signs of slowing. Expected to hit over $40.6 billion globally in 2022, OOH is on track to top some $40.42 billion in 2026. Powering this acceleration is digital-out-of-home (DOOH) advertising, projected to reach $33 billion by 2027 on its own. At the center of its rise are dynamic ads — ultra-responsive, content-based ads that target audiences in the real world with engaging, personalized and contextual content.

By partnering with an online OOH buying platform, advertisers can use first-party data to optimize their content based on dynamic triggers, such as the weather, dayparting and point of interest. This is especially relevant for retailers that can update creative to highlight specific types of merchandise, such as rain jackets and umbrellas when it’s overcast or sunglasses and hats when it’s sunny.

4. Optimize ads and engage consumers with QR codes to drive action.

Although once forgotten, QR codes have seen a recent resurgence. With the ability to spark engagement and immediately get brand information and promotions on a consumer’s mobile device, they aren’t likely to go anywhere. In fact, a recent Statista study found that 59 percent of respondents believed QR codes would be a permanent element of device usage in the future.

Even more revealing, 45 percent of responding shoppers said they recently used a marketing-related QR code. The good news for retailers looking to engage college students: QR code usage was highest among respondents ages 18 to 29. By incorporating QR codes into OOH creative, such as transit ads or wallscapes, advertisers can launch action-driven campaigns that engage shoppers in real time, driving them to visit storefronts, download apps, interact on social media, and shop online promotions.

5. Amplify your entire media mix by embracing OOH in your strategy.

Advertising requires thinking outside the box and deploying messages across multiple platforms. Therefore, it’s important to consider the boost OOH brings to a brand’s entire media mix — especially during a shopping peak like the back-to-school season. If advertisers aren’t including OOH in their campaign strategy, they're missing out on the amplifying effect it has on their other digital and traditional marketing channels.

Take social media. More than two-thirds of Gen Z and millennial consumers recalled seeing OOH advertising on social media. Even more telling, 91 percent of Gen Z and 82 percent of millennial respondents say they would reshare OOH ads on social media.

Students know better than most that trends can be fleeting, but retailers should take note: the early back-to-school shopping season and increased spending on supplies, clothing and dorm necessities are here to stay. School’s out for summer: make it a hot, back-to-school shopping summer and fall by upleveling your campaigns with OOH ads.

Matthew O'Connor is the CEO and co-founder of AdQuick.com, the first platform to allow brands, agencies and individuals to complete the entire process of planning, buying, executing and measuring out-of-home (OOH) advertising campaigns anywhere in the U.S. and around the globe.