OOH Campaigns in Post-COVID Environment: New Strategies for New Normal
For the last few weeks, the brands have paused their ‘Out Of Home’ (OOH) campaigns since there are no crowds in public places. But, as we are in lockdown 4.0, the central and state governments liberalized the restrictions on the movement of the people. Some businesses and commercial zones will be resuming their operations with a lower workforce. With this relaxation, brands will gain the confidence to come back on the board, and media spends will be returned to OOH.
For brands, this is the ideal opportunity to shift from the old way. The OOH companies should rebuild their strategies, systems, and business model to adjust to the new normal. They have to plan what should be done in the post-COVID environment.
Recently, in the UK, Digital OOH media owner Ocean has introduced touchless advertising screens, which will transform the audience and brand experiences post COVID-19. For replacing touch screen activity with displays and interfaces which are triggered by natural hand interactions, Ocean will implement mid-air haptics technology to DOOH.
Ocean introduced this integration of mid-air haptics technology with DOOH for custom burgers, where the customer will get a unique QR code of burger after choosing the ingredients. This QR code can be scanned and they can redeem their burgers in the nearest outlets. This features the potential advancements OOH inventories need to make customer engagement post-COVID.
Views of OOH Industry Experts
The OOH industry experts are very visionary about operating and investing in post-COVID environment.
Atul Shrivastava, CEO, Laqshya Media Group shared his views as, “Post lockdown we will focus on upgrading our current inventory. DOOH will slowly increase but that will take time in terms of core OOH offerings. DOOH has better traction in transit venues like airports and railway stations which will continue to become more effective.”
Fabian Cowan, Director, Posterscope India believes that in an ecosystem that is driven by data, the investments are dictated less by the type of inventory and more by audience insights and location intelligence. Cowan shares, “We envisage that media that is present at commute locations, at residential clusters and commercial complexes will be used more in the interim. Digital inventory in and around these locations too will get a significant uplift.”
About the sectors of brands that will invest in OOH post-COVID, Jayesh Yagnik, CEO, MOMS Outdoor Media Solutions commented that, “All brands of FMCG, Auto (especially 2 wheelers), Insurance (especially life, auto, and health) and Consumer Durables are key categories, which we expect to start as soon as possible. Retail, Real estate, Hospitality, Airlines might take some time and start as soon as they get operational.”
