Preparing to work on your first digital out-of-home campaign? Developing creative for such a unique medium, that can be found in countless locations and in a variety of digital signage formats, can be intimidating – but it doesn’t have to be! DOOH is an effective channel for capturing your audience’s attention and driving real-world impact with your marketing campaigns. To help you get started, we’re sharing our best tips for making the best DOOH creative.

5 Tips to Improve Your Digital Out-of-Home Creative

1. Stay on Brand!

This may sound redundant, but make sure your brand name or logo is always present. Whether the creative is a single image or video, you want your brand to be present throughout the entire ad. It’s also important to use bold, legible fonts. You’ll want your audience to be able to read your carefully crafted messaging at both short and long distances. On a similar note, contrasting colors are viewed well from great distances, so go ahead – go bright! When it comes to messaging, don’t get overly complicated.  A simple and interesting brand message can go a long way.

2. Context is Key

As a location-driven channel, digital out-of-home relies heavily on context to help convey your brand message. Some critical questions you need to ask before creating your campaign assets are:
-   Are you activating on large-format or place-based screens?
-   What is the population like around the screen location?
-   For how long are consumers typically in front of this screen?
Once you know the answers to these questions, you’ll be able to make more informed decisions on what type of creative will perform well.

3. Keep it Relevant

Two things to keep in mind when developing relevant creative are timing and location. Seasons, holidays, time of day and day of the week all factor in to how your message is received. For example, creative specific to the morning commute could differ from how you want to message in the evening. Location comes into play when you’re activating in certain DMAs or want to reach a specific type of consumer. Messaging in your creative on NYC public transit could be different from that found along LA highways. Likewise, creative for an audience of fitness enthusiasts on gym screens would differ from creative for business travelers at the airport. No matter when or where you’re activating, you don’t want your creative to feel out of place.

4. Consider Video

If the venue where you’re activating accepts video, consider using it! Video-formatted DOOH helps attracts viewers, tell your story and deliver emotion. This also provides marketers with the opportunity to leverage an existing TV spot or trailer, repurposing creative that’s already been developed and tested. However, you don’t want to overdo it – again, simple is better. Subtle animation can elevate your creative by bringing depth and excitement to your messaging. And if you’re going to use video with audio, always include subtitles to ensure the proper message is being captured by your audience.

5. The Nitty Gritty

Once you’ve thought about branding, context, relevance and video, there are a few technical features you should be aware of. All creative assets will need to be uploaded and submitted to the media owner for approval prior to the launch of your campaign. Be sure to give yourself enough time for approval – we typically recommend a minimum of 5 business days. If your team doesn’t have dedicated resources to build creative for DOOH, not to worry! Vistar provides automated creative transcoding so that your pre-existing digital assets can be used at scale across venue types. There are also several category restrictions, that vary by state and media owner. Typically, these pertain to tobacco, alcohol and cannabis brands or political ads. 

Now – are you ready to get started?