The explosion of new formats and technological innovations in the medium has made Out-of-Home advertising an extremely versatile and increasingly effective way of reaching consumers. On the other hand, the things Out-of-Home advertising has always been good at have become even more pertinent as TV audiences decline. Interestingly, Out-of-Home advertising now has the capability of delivering outdoor TV through digital billboard technology.
It is most instructive to imagine what Out-of-Home advertising can do if format standardization is entrenched in any market. Format standardization remains the ideal protectionism for Out-of-Home advertising development and sustainability. The advantages of standardization in developed market cannot be over emphasized as it allows for control of supply of billboard formats in different environment within a society. It equally helps to ensure standard rate card in the market.
Standardization of Out-of-Home advertising formats helps to drive higher occupancy rates on these assets and reduces the number of idle or vacant sites across the available formats in a market. It remains a veritable measure to ensure control within any market, as it minimizes the variable nature of supply that is available to potential and existing clients. Interestingly, all formats within an Out-of-Home advertising formats standardized market enjoy good patronage. This is because in some areas there would be only street furniture and that would be the only available opportunity for visibility that any advertiser can take advantage of and same applies to other roadside billboards like Unipole.
In the 1990s, Outdoor Media Owners in the UK market towards a bid to increase earning potential on their biggest allowed billboard format being 96sheet started employing the use of architectural facades to make the site appear larger. As such, the trend of turning a 96sheet into landmark sites began and these sites were also branded with iconic product names. Today, we can reference several iconic and landmark sites in the developed market but it is critical to note that the display faces remains within the allowed standard format dimension.
To conclude, we indeed need to consider format standardization for the betterment of Out-of-Home advertising and use this to sustain the future that would be largely supported by more technological development.
