The benefits of digital billboard advertising

Digital billboards are not new. Think Piccadilly Circus and Times Square for example, both have been around for over a decade. During this time digital billboards were only available to the biggest global brands with huge marketing budgets. Now with the technical advancements and reducing costs of digital screen technology, outdoor advertising has undergone some exciting changes. You might have noticed billboards in your local area being replaced with digital billboards. This trend will continue in major centres across the UK for the foreseeable future.

Why is digital so exciting? There are many benefits of using digital billboards:

Prime locations

Digital billboards are usually built in the busiest locations. More people passing the billboard means more potential customers looking at your ad.

Production cost savings

There are no posters required, so you save on the cost of printing.

Shorter lead times

Your ad is sent electronically to the screen, which can happen in a matter of hours. No need to send a paper poster two weeks before your ad goes up.

Multiple messages

If you have different stores to promote, you can send different versions of your ad with the address of each one. If you have two different products or services to promote, just send in two ads – you can use your time slot to display them both.

Flexible start dates

Outdoor advertising traditionally works in two week blocks and there are good reasons for this. However, with digital, you can start and end on the day you want. If your event is on a Wednesday, you can stop your advertising on a Wednesday, or the Tuesday before, or the Monday…

Shorter campaigns

Two weeks is generally the recommended period for an outdoor advertisement to be on display, in order to optimise your exposure.  There are however situations when it may be more beneficial to run your ad for a shorter number of hours over a longer time period. Do you have a special offer every Tuesday? You can choose to show your ad every Sunday, Monday and Tuesday only, stopping when your offer stops on the Tuesday. This reduces potential ‘wastage’ (when your advertisement is less effective), making more efficient use of your budget.

Specific times of day

Think about your product. If you are an off-license or bar, do you want to advertise to people on their morning commute? The afternoon may be a more appropriate time to advertise your bargain bottle of wine. You can choose to capture people’s attention as they head home from a stressful day at work!

Creativity

Digital technology offers some great creative opportunities, using all of the features described above. Here are a few examples of how you could use them. I’m sure you can think of more for your business…

• Is your restaurant open for breakfast, lunch and dinner? Use three different ads at appropriate times of the day, showing a coffee between 6am-11am, a sandwich between 11am and 3pm and a juicy steak from 3pm-8pm.
• Does your fast food place stay open late? Advertise a delicious-looking kebab between 10pm and 3am only, which will be an inexpensive yet effective time to advertise.
• Your travel agency has great winter sun deals, so advertise sunny Tenerife when the temperature hits 10 degrees or lower. Yup, that’s possible! As long as we have your ad, we can set it up so it only shows when the temperature hits your specified range.
• Conversely, advertise your ice-cream or ice cold drinks and shady beer garden only when the sun is out and shining bright!
• Do you have products for both men and women? Do you have a ladies-only section of your gym and a large free weights section? Send in two ads, you can split your time slot to promote both. If you’ve bought a 10 second ad every 2 minutes, you can show one for 5 seconds, then the other. Or rotate them; show one ad for 10 seconds then in your next 10 second spot, show the other.
• New store opening, big event, new product launch? Do a countdown to the big day. ‘Only 5 days to go, buy your ticket today’.

Until now, booking digital outdoor advertising has been a complicated process. Bubble is changing this – with a few simple clicks, you can book your time slot on prime digital billboards throughout the UK. Check out our easy to use platform to start your search.