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In 2013, the Canadian budget airline WestJet surveyed passengers using interactive life-like screens, which depicted Santa dressed in the airline’s colours, to find out what they would like as Christmas presents. The airline employees kept taking notes of all their answers behind the scenes and then rushed for mad dash shopping of the respondents’ presents so that they could wrap and label them while the plane was airborne. The passengers’ astonished and thrilled emotions, along with the pleasure and delight reflected on the faces of the employees made for a fantastic video that went viral all over the internet and became known as the “Christmas Miracle”.

This grassroots marketing move of the airline set it apart and was very well in line with its idea of never losing sight of the caring WestJet touch. Grassroots marketing is one of the most effective and economical marketing strategies which most companies are inclining towards to spread product awareness these days.

Let us unravel the various aspects of grassroots marketing and how it can be fruitful and look at some innovative examples of the same.

What Is Grassroots Marketing?

Grassroots marketing is a marketing strategy that attempts to target a highly niche audience to make them propagate the brand message organically to a larger audience and thus, amplify the brand’s visibility in the marketplace.

Instead of reaching out to a larger segment of the consumer population, marketers try persuading that niche audience to spread the word and advocate their products or services amongst their peers.

It is akin to viral promotion of products and services by inspiring the audience to share it with others. The idea is that if a brand is looking to raise brand awareness from the ground up, it should start from the ‘grassroots’.

Grassroots Marketing Examples

Now that we have delved into what grassroots marketing is, looking at a couple of creative examples would give us a better insight and deeper understanding of the same.

UNICEF: Likes Don’t Save Lives

The early 2010s saw social media users obsess over increasing their Facebook likes and engagement. This even made them use causes and play with people’s emotions as they used pictures and videos of underprivileged humans, especially children.

Even though UNICEF appreciated the platform for creating a stage for awareness, it was against using this technique to gain more likes. Hence, it came up with Likes Don’t Save Lives campaign that gave a clear message that to save a life, one needs money, not likes.

ALS Ice Bucket Challenge

The challenge was to make a video pouring a bucket of ice water on people’s heads, either self-administered or by some other person and then challenge someone else to do the same. People were supposed to donate money to the ALS association if they participated in the challenge. This unique concept went viral in 2014 and initiated a chain reaction that helped spread awareness about the disease ALS and encouraged donations to research on the same. The idea was to inspire people to take action and support a cause from the ground up, which eventually grew to a nationwide campaign that grabbed everyone’s attention.

Dove Real Beauty Campaign

In the Dove Real Beauty Campaign, Dove got a forensic artist to draw women the way they picturised themselves and in a way some other stranger did. This powerful video started a movement and inspired so many women to believe in themselves and see their real beauty. It forced people to think about the deep rooted social conditioning which defines ‘ideal beauty standards’ for women.

Advantages Of grassroots marketing

Grassroots marketing moves can be advantageous for a company majorly because of the following reasons:

• Cost-efficient: The amount of money that one has to spend on a marketing campaign has nothing to do with the marketing weapon’s efficiency. Since the targeted audience is highly niche, grassroots efforts lead to significantly low expenditures.
• Direct interaction with the audience: If a brand directly appeals to the audience interactively and puts forth its perspective, it makes an impressive mark on the consumers and portrays itself as being a socially proactive brand.
• Garnering customer trust: In today’s era of advertisements overload, it isn’t easy to figure out whom to trust and whom not to. Hence, people put more trust in recommendations from known ones. Grassroots marketing uses this referral marketing strategy to gain consumer trust.
• Increasing local reach: Grassroots marketing drives can help businesses impact society, especially the local communities. For instance, some community events or collaborations with NGOs can draw people’s attention towards both the brand and the cause.

Disadvantages Of Grassroots Marketing

Even though it comes with its own set of advantages, grassroots marketing has its cons too, which may stop a business from choosing it as a marketing strategy.

• Time intensive: Grassroots marketing relies on word-of-mouth. Hence, it takes its own time. A grassroots marketing campaign is probably not a good idea if a brand wants to reach a large group quickly.
• No full control: A brand doesn’t usually control the information that spreads due to a grassroots marketing campaign. This could turn out to be a blunder for the company if people misunderstand the message.
• Unpredictable: Even though a grassroots marketing campaign is a well-calculated strategy, predicting its success or failure isn’t always possible as it heavily depends on human emotions, timings, and other external factors.

Strategies or ideas to optimise Grassroots Marketing

Incorporating the following strategies can help brands optimise their grassroots marketing:

• Offer product samples: Brands can showcase their products in exhibitions or trade fairs or any other events of the kind to increase product awareness. For instance, they can give some sample products to potential clients or make them taste something special on the menu in case of a restaurant.
• Sponsorship prizes: Giving some unique sponsorship prizes to the winners of a contest can make a mark on them and encourage them to spread word about the products and services of the brand.
• Pitch a viral video series: If the people like the content and share it with others, it can help create a lot of buzz and increase popularity in the market.
• Take advantage of social media: The brand should be actively present everywhere it can find potential customers so that it does not miss out on any possible opportunity to increase its reach.
• Collaborations: Partnering with different businesses and influencers helps reach a wide audience and can open doors to new brand opportunities.
• Support a good cause: Getting involved in charities or supporting good causes can appeal to the people because it helps the brand connect with people’s emotional sentiments.
• Moment marketing: Nowadays, moment centric content buckets receive the most appreciation because people find it easier to relate to them. Thus, catching current trends helps brands express how proactive they are.
• Host events: Organising events like webinars, workshops or any other sessions spreads the word and increases awareness about a product or service.
• Interview blogs and story-telling: Story-telling and interview transcripts can help spread brand messages and make people connect with the brand better.

Difference between grassroots marketing and guerilla marketing

People often tend to confuse between the terms, grassroots marketing and guerilla marketing.

The key distinct feature between the two is that grassroots marketing moves aim to target a very niche audience and then consequently spread the word while guerilla marketing campaigns are aimed to reach as many people as possible. For instance, McDonald’s has made use of a lot of creative guerilla marketing campaigns which are not grassroots marketing examples because they do not target a specific audience.

Bottom-Line?

The growing inclination towards grassroots marketing is that these tactics help brands grow exponentially in a very short span of time. However, it is very essential to know which audience should be specifically targeted and what strategy should be used to make such an impression on that audience that they spread brand awareness to as large an audience as possible.

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Acquiring new customers is an expensive task when compared to retaining existing ones. With limited resources, the company devises different strategies as and when required. A business may use transactional marketing strategies to acquire a new customer. But to retain customers and ensure recurring sales, businesses have to engage in relationship marketing. The long-term goal, after all, is to achieve recurring interactions with every new customer.

What Is Relationship Marketing?

Relationship marketing is a marketing strategy that focuses on achieving long-term customer loyalty by building emotional relationships with existing customers.

It aims to ensure repetitive sales by winning the purchaser’s confidence in the product. Strong customer bonds, especially at an emotional level, ensure stable business activity and further promotion to attract potential customers.

Unlike transactional marketing, which is a traditional approach, relationship marketing targets long-term benefits through customer retention. If a business manages to prioritise consumer satisfaction over establishing a sale, consumer retention automatically kicks in.

With the advent of the internet and social media marketing, interacting with the audience has become even easier. Companies can align their products and services with the latest trends and sustain in this dynamic environment.

Examples Of Relationship Marketing

Some brands have effectively employed a relationship marketing model in their work and have achieved great heights. Some examples are as followed:

Amazon

The number one eCommerce marketplace globally, Amazon manages to deliver product recommendations based on the user’s purchase and browser history. The company has managed to establish itself as a customer-friendly brand and thus capture a big market share.

1. Data-driven: The algorithm is designed to show the customer the products that seem relevant to their interests. Easy browsing, personalised feedback, and customer interactions add to effective interaction and engagement.
2. Convenience: The website ensures a hassle-free shopping experience by providing easy returns and one-click purchases. 
3. Feedback: it is easier for people to share their shopping experience with their family and friends and also leave honest reviews about the product.

Coca-Cola

The company manages to endorse its products through heartfelt messages for customers.

Coca-Cola’s marketing campaigns focus on establishing the brand to be a perfect partner for happy moments. Its advertising campaigns come with touching messages about family and friends.  Even the Coca-Cola bottle tempts the customers to share that bottle with someone special.

The brand successfully maintains a relationship with its customers by evoking an emotion of happiness –  even inspired — when the customer buys or consumes the soda.

Importance Of Relationship Marketing

1. Sustainability – Relationship marketing helps in obtaining long-term benefits for the business. It helps in maintaining the position of the organisation in the market.
2. Customer loyalty – Building relationships with customers helps in building a personal connection with them. This, in turn, triggers the psychology of ownership, resulting in their desire to come back to the same brand for future purchases.
3. Steady sales- Long-term relationship objective ensures continuous sales from existing customers.

Relationship Marketing Strategies

In the present scenario, several business organisations sell the same product but with variations. It is important to deliver something which attracts the consumer and makes them return for future purchases.

Following are some tools and strategies that business organisations use to add value to their products.

1. KYC- Know Your Customer is a process of verifying the customer’s identity. It is in accordance with opening an account of the clients with the organisation. Businesses use information like birth dates and anniversary dates to wish the customers and nurture their relationships.
2. Customer Relationship Management: CRM software and solutions help businesses record and store details about the customers, their purchases, personal information, and other details. It enables businesses to keep in touch with clients with better information, resulting in better relations.
3. Customer Service: Any business organisation must prioritise consumer service and support followed by the product’s sale. These after sales-techniques help in winning consumer’s trust, developing a relationship that makes them return.
4. Email and SMS marketing: It involves sending the customers regular messages regarding upcoming and ongoing offers and deals. They are a means of effective communication to stay connected with the audience.
5. Customer feedback: Taking feedback and reviews from the consumers themselves forms a positive image in people’s minds. They believe that their feedback matters to the organisation.
6. Online and social media marketing: with the introduction of websites like Facebook, Instagram, etc., digital marketing is gaining popularity. Businesses uses the same for better customer interaction.
7. Loyalty programs: Loyalty programs rewards the customers for their long association with the business. This reward works wonders in developing a long-term relationship with the customer and can even result in organic referral marketing.

Benefits Of Relationship Marketing

1. Reduction in advertisement expenses- Marketing and advertising is a heavy expense. Relationship marketing usually results in referrals, word of mouth, and viral marketing, which, in turn, reduces the business’s expenses to acquire new customers.
2. High Customer Lifetime Value: A loyal customer often conducts recurrent purchases without much effort from the business. It increases the CLV and helps the business get a better ROI.
3. Inelastic Demand: A loyal customer’s demand is usually unaffected by small changes in the offering’s price. All they care about is a good experience and a better brand relationship.
4. Valuable feedback: A healthy customer relationship also results in better and more detailed customer feedback that helps the business grow.
5. Competitive edge: The perfect tactic to survive the dynamic environment is developing relationships with the customer and making them loyal to the brand.

Drawbacks Of Relationship Marketing

1. Not Much Attention To New Customers: the main focus of relationship marketing is to retain old customers. Thus, the potential customers who demand more attention tend to get overlooked as it is natural to value the old customers a little more than normal.
2. Time-Intensive: building personal relationships and establishing connections is a slow process and does not show immediate effects. This whole process takes up a lot of time and is indeed expensive.
3. The Expectation For Special Treatment: Whenever customers return for another purchase, they may expect special treatment or a discount. This expectation arises as they return to the same brand instead of looking for another in the market.

Relationship Marketing vs Transactional Marketing

Transactional marketing, as in contrast with relationship marketing focuses only on establishing a transaction. It targets individual sales and maximisation of revenue. The producers are not concerned much about customer satisfaction and relationship building.

Bottom-Line?

Every marketing strategy devises a different approach to establish sales. But, the key to growth ultimately lies in building a community of long-term customers. The emotional connection in the consumer-buyer relationship is the factor that drives repetitive sales. Personal interactions with customers were not an easy task to accomplish in earlier days. With the introduction of technology and social media, it is easier to practice this marketing technique and ultimately help achieve the long-term growth of the business.

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Economies around the world house several market structures, some of which are hypothetical – that do not exist in the real world.

One of these hypothetical market structures is the perfect competition form of market structure. Hence, we find no real-world examples of perfect competition.

Even though this is the case, it is important to learn and understand this model. That is because understanding the features of this model enables one to gain a deeper understanding of the other market structures that exist in the real world by means of comparison.

So what is perfect competition?

Let’s find out!

What is Perfect Competition?

Perfect competition is a market structure where several firms in an industry sell homogeneous products.

To further simplify this concept, let’s break it down into three parts:

• Market structure: A market structure is how a market is organised. It explains the competition in the market and how different players are connected to each other.
• Several firms: In a perfect competition type of market structure, numerous firms exist in the industry, and hence these firms face a lot of competition.
• Homogeneous products: All the firms that exist in the industry sell highly similar goods. Thus, these products are perfect substitutes of each other.

Characteristics of Perfect competition

• Numerous buyers and sellers – In a perfect competition form of market structure, one witnesses a large number of buyers with the ability and willingness to buy a certain product. Similarly, these market structures also house large number of sellers.
• Homogeneous/ highly similar product – products sold in a perfectly competitive market structure are perfect substitutes of each other since they are highly identical. For example, in agricultural markets, farmers produce and sell products that are homogeneous, like wheat and barley.
• No barriers to entry and exit – There exist no restrictions that prevent a firm from entering a perfectly competitive market, nor does any force compel a firm to continue existing in a market.
• Perfect mobility – Factors of production in a perfectly competitive market have perfect mobility. This means that factors used for production can be freely moved from one use to another depending on the payment these factors receive.
• Perfect knowledge – Both, the buyers, and sellers, in a perfectly competitive market possess the same knowledge regarding the concerned product.
• No government restrictions – No government or any kind of restrictions exist to hinder the functioning of a perfectly competitive market.
• No transportation cost – In order to be able to offer a product at one price anywhere, regardless of the distance between the place of production and the market, it is assumed that there exist no transportation costs in a perfectly competitive market.
• Price taker – Firms in a perfectly competitive market are compelled to charge a price that is determined by the market forces of demand and supply. Individual firms cannot charge their own prices and have to accept the price determined by the market forces.

Perfect competition in the short run: super-normal profits

In the short run, competing firms could make an economic profit which are supernormal.

A super normal profit is one where the revenue earned by the firm is greater than the average cost.

The diagram shows that the profit maximizing firm produces at the point where marginal cost (MC) intersects marginal revenue (MR). The cost incurred is denoted by the line where the line that extends from the aforementioned point of intersection meets the average total cost curve. This line, when extended further, meets the demand curve.

The economic profit earned, is thus, the difference between the average cost and average revenue, which is multiplied by the total quantity produced.

Perfect competition in the long run: normal profits

In the long run, competing firms could not sustain and earn economic profit, and hence earn only normal profits.

A normal profit is one where the revenue earned by the firm is equal to the average cost. Since the difference between the average revenue and the average cost is zero, the profit earned is essentially equally to zero.

The profit maximizing firm produces at the point where MC intersects MR. The point where MC intersects MR is also the point which denotes the average cost.

As new firms have entered the market, the demand curve of each firm in the perfectly competitive market shifts downwards, until it is a horizontal line.

Thus, in the long run, the firms only earn normal profits, i.e, profits which are equal to zero.

Advantages of Perfect competition

• Optimal allocation of resources – In the long- run, the price of the product is equal to the marginal cost of the product in a perfectly competitive market. This is a socially beneficial point where there is an optimal distribution of the goods produced to consumers in an economy.
• Competition encourages efficiency – Since a perfectly competitive market houses several firms, there is a lot of competition among these firms. In order to be able to supply to the growing consumer demand, these firms start producing more efficiently.
• Consumers charged a lower price – Perfectly competitive markets house many firms, and with time, all the firms are compelled to charge the same price for the product. This is because the firms that charges a lower price than the other firms will grab a greater market share, and so, all firms stick to just one price which is equal to the average cost of producing the product.

Disadvantages of Perfect competition

• Products that are undifferentiated – Since products in a perfectly competitive market are homogeneous in nature, consumers have limited options.
• No supernormal profits in the long run – In the long run, the marginal revenue earned by a firm is equal to its marginal cost. As a result, the profit earned is essentially equal to zero (normal profits). Hence, this is a disadvantage for the firms in a perfectly competitive market.
• Perfect knowledge hinders innovation – as knowledge about a product is available to all, there are no incentives for firms to engage in innovating. This is because other firms would essentially employ the same innovation, and hence, this free riding of information discourages firms from innovating.

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When a customer goes to a grocery store to buy some wheat flour or uses a food delivery app to order a burger, the customer is expected to pay for these offerings. The money charged here is the price. But the price that we pay for these offerings has more to it than just that.

What exactly is price? What determines the price of an offering? Is it the same as cost?

Let’s find out!

What Is Price?

Price is the value or money customers give up in exchange for a particular offering that would serve to satisfy their needs and wants.

In simple terms, a price is the measure of the value a customer exchanges to purchase an offering.

Prices serve as an economic mechanism using which offerings can be distributed among customers in the marketplace.

They also act as indicators of the extent to which an offering is demanded and also the extent to which it is supplied or available.

The price of a product is the overall value of the offering, including the value of all raw materials and service that went into making an offering. The price of service considers all elements involved in the making of the service what it is.

Function Of Price

In a free market, prices serve several purposes. Below listed are some of the functions of prices:

• The rationing function of price: Prices have the ability to ration scarce resources. A scarcity of resources causes the resource’s price to go high, allowing only those customers to buy who show both willingness and ability. For example, diamond is a luxury offering that can only be bought by those who are willing and have enough financial resources to purchase it.
• The signalling function of price: Often, an offering’s price varies due to its demand and supply volumes – by the scarcity or the surplus of an offering in the marketplace. If an offering’s demand is high, but the supply is low, the market evidently will see a rise in its price. For example, gold is a scarce resource that sees a constant rise in its price over the years as its demand increases. Similarly, if the market has an excess of a particular commodity due to lower demand and higher supply, its price tends to decrease. It would enable the elimination of surpluses of this commodity in the market.
• The incentive function of price: Usually, when a commodity’s price rises, it is because its demand has increased. This allows suppliers a look into the changing demand trends of customers in a marketplace. Accordingly, they would prefer to produce that particular offering as it is more likely to be profitable.
• The transmission function of price: Prices necessarily transmit information to all those involved in the marketplace, and this, in turn, enables both producers and customers to make an informed decision in the marketplace. For example, a good quality offering might cost more than an offering that used cheaper raw materials. Hence, a customer would be able to get this information from the drastic difference in these similar offerings’ prices. Similarly, an offering’s price would help a supplier determine the kind of demand an offering sees in the market. This would allow the supplier or producer to decide whether the offering’s production and supply would help them gain a more significant profit.

How Are Prices Determined?

Prices depend on the law of demand and supply. That is, it rises or falls till the quantity demanded equals the quantity supplied. This point is called the equilibrium price.

If the demand of an offering is more than its supply, the price rises, allowing only those buyers to access the offering who have the willingness and ability to buy it. The rise is till both demand and supply meet at an equilibrium.

If the supply exceeds the demand, the price falls to the point of equilibrium.

Difference Between Price And Cost

People often use the terms price and cost interchangeably. One may say, “I had to pay a high cost for this brand new television set”. While the sentence still conveys the message when used in conversations, both price and cost are technically different concepts when we talk about finance.

While the price of an offering is the monetary amount a customer pays to acquire a certain offering, the cost of offering considers the seller’s expenses in manufacturing the offering. Simply put, the price concerns the buyer, while the cost concerns the seller or the producer of an offering.

Firms with profit maximisation objectives will look for ways to reduce the cost so that the price exceeds it, enabling them to gain greater profits. If the price of an offering is set to a lower point where the costs are higher than the price, the firm will make losses as the seller does not recover the amount that he spent on manufacturing the offering. Meanwhile, if the offering’s price and cost are the same, it is said that the firm is at its break-even; it makes neither profits nor losses.

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Advertising is one of the best tools to communicate with customers. It helps them get to know about the latest trends and developments in the market and be informed about the availability of different varieties of products and services around them.

In recent years, with changing technology and increasing consumer awareness, out-of-home advertising has vastly evolved. It is gaining momentum each day as more companies are investing in this sector.

Therefore, this article will discuss what out-of-home advertising is, its types, emerging trends, and its future scope.

What Is Out-Of-Home Advertising?

Out-of-home advertising (OOH), also known as outdoor advertising, refers to advertising that reaches consumers outside their homes.

These advertisements are a component of above the line advertising strategy that is largely non-targeted and has a wide reach. The main motive of out-of-home advertising is to spread awareness, reinforce, reassure, or direct someone towards the brand or an offering. It’s a shotgun marketing approach where a business give less importance to conversion rates and more to brand awareness and brand engagement.

According to Out-Of-Home Advertising Association of America, an average customer spends seventy percent of their time outside their homes. Outdoor advertising refers to when a business capitalise on that seventy percent of customer time to publicise it’s offerings.

Major Types Of Out Of Home Advertising

While most people are familiar with billboard advertising, it’ll be surprising to know that there are a total of six different types that can be used as a means for advertising in the outdoor space. These are:

Billboard Advertising 

Billboard advertising is one of the most commonly used mediums of OOH advertising. These generally consist of large print ads displayed on high elevated boards. 

They are often placed along roadsides (on highways or independent stands) and are close to high footfall areas, such as shopping complexes, malls, and stadiums.

Additionally, billboards offer advertisers an effective way for building brand and offering awareness as a large number of pedestrians and commuters can see them on the way.

Types Of Billboards 

Billboards come in many different shapes and sizes and can be categorised as follows:

• Static billboards: These billboards are stationary in nature and can be typically seen on the roadside.
• Mobile billboards: A mobile billboard is a type of transit media and is generally transported on the back of a vehicle, such as a bus or a truck.
• Digital billboards: Digital billboards are dynamic computer-controlled electronic displays that use LED screens to showcase advertisements. 

Transit Advertising

Advertising through transport or transit media is a prevalent form of OOH advertising. This form of advertising can be commonly found on public transportation. 

A viral example of this can be the ad campaign created by the Martin Agency. 

During the great recession, suicide rates were going up as more people started losing their jobs. Therefore, The Martin Agency, in collaboration with careerbuilders.com, came up with the strategy to put “Don’t jump” signs on top of all public transport buses. 

This campaign became a huge sensation and eventually won the Cannes Bronze Lion Award.

These particular advertisements were placed on tops of buses and could be seen from tops of buildings and offices and helped Martin Agency win a Bronze Lion from Cannes

Types Of Transit Advertising 

Transit or vehicular advertising is a very efficient and economical method to advertise brands and can be further divided into the following categories:

• Advertisements on buses: Advertisements can be displayed both on the exterior and the interior of a bus. This way, as the bus cruises through the city, the Ads message can be effectively conveyed to the bus commuters and the pedestrians.
• Advertisements wrapped around taxis: Advertisements wrapped around taxis can include both partial and full wraps. Like bus adverts, they help local brands circulate their message to the public to increase brand awareness.
• Advertisements on subways: Subway systems are a perfect location for advertisements. These offer brands an effective strategy to bring awareness about their product to commuters when and where commuters are in need of a distraction. 

Point-Of-Sale Advertising

Point-of-sale, also known as point-of-purchase advertising, includes communication materials used to draw consumers’ attention at the moment of purchase.

The main purpose of POS is to encourage customers to make last-minute purchases.

For instance, displaying complementary products like phone covers and earphones at a mobile store can be considered a form of point-of-sale advertising.

Types Of POS Advertising 

Some of the most common and recognisable forms of POS advertising include:

• Counter display: They includeprinted and branded display stands made of materials ranging from cardboard, printed Perspex, etc., to name a few.
• Other Visual aids: A simple poster placed above a container full of the promoted products can be considered as a form of POS advertising 

Street Furniture 

Street furniture advertising refers to ad displays placed on sidewalks, bus shelters, kiosks, newsstands, benches, and other related equipment and furniture.

Companies who want crisp, clear signage that communicates well from a distance use this form of advertising. 

Further, street furniture advertisements are affixed in a way that it is at close proximity to pedestrians so that advertisers can effectively bring about brand awareness of their product.

Retail Advertising  

A retaileris an intermediary who makes products available to their consumers by using different channels. Therefore, in retail advertising, retailers use store advertising to drive awareness and interest towards their products to generate in order to generate more sales. 

This way, a retailer can effectively attempt to influence their target customers’ opinions to take specific actions, like buying complementary products from the store.

An excellent example of this type of advertising can be a retailer using the ‘buy one get one free’ or ‘up to 50% sale’ poster on top of their products.

Types Of Retail Advertising 

A retailer strives to promote its brand awareness amongst the masses to increase brand loyalty so that a customer revisits the store. Further, retail advertising can be categorised into the following types:

• Mall media: It refers to advertising displayed on roofs, window films, and banners. The retailers generally opt for this mode of advertising in large stores or malls. 
• Elevator advertisement: Banners and posters displayed on the elevator walls are known as lift or elevator advertising.
• Floor graphics: Floor graphics are placed on the floor of a retail store that, in turn, allows marketers to provide an immersive advertising environment creatively.

Construction Advertising  

Construction advertising refers to placing advertisements on a temporary boarded fence in a public place and is usually erected around a construction site.

This type of advertising protects the public from site works while offering companies an opportunity to promote their products and services to generate brand awareness effectively.

Types Of Construction Advertising

• Hoarding graphics: A hoarding is defined as a temporary boarded fence in a public place. It offers a fantastic opportunity for out-of-home advertising. 
• Scaffold wraps: Scaffold advertising includes graphic ads printed on protective meshes of a scaffolding. It, in turn, makes them an eye-catching method of advertising.
• Building wraps: For projects with extensive scaffolding and structural support, building wrap ads can be printed to cover the construction site.

What Is Digital Out-Of-Home Advertising?

There is no second thought in saying that growing digitisation is the main driving force behind the advertising industry. Some say it’s the future.

Therefore, there can be seen a trend in Brands and Ad agencies making huge investments in their DOOH advertising in recent times.

Digital out-of-home advertising, also known as digital signage, is gaining momentum in the advertising industry today.

DOOH advertising offers companies an interactive and attractive advertising method by using a digital medium such as digital billboards, digital signage, display screens, etc.

As per a recent report recently published by PQ Media, DOOH is predicted to rise to 38.3% by the year 2023, in turn, making the shift from traditional out-of-home to digital out-of-home advertising inevitable.

Examples For Out-Of-Home Advertising

Almost every renowned brand, especially the retail brands, make use of outdoor advertising for some of their marketing campaigns. Here are a few examples of outdoor advertising that stood out of the crowd.

McDonald’s Sundial Ad

The billboard ad used by McDonald’s back in 2006 was and still is rated as one of the best examples of out-home advertising campaigns.

McDonald’s opted for an M-shaped sundial in the ad that presented a range of McDonald’s food items. 

Further, the ad showed what snacks were served at what time — for instance, coffee in the morning and cheeseburgers in the afternoon, and so forth.

Spotify Latest Playlist Ad

Another example of OOH advertising is the 2017 ad campaign created by Spotify. This advertisement highlighted some of the best trending playlists on their platform. 

The Ad campaign became a huge sensation in no time, and the number of Spotify users increased dramatically.

Pros And Cons Of Out Of Home Advertising 

Out-of-home advertising remains a prevalent way for companies and start-ups to market their brand to the public. However, it comes with its own set of advantages and disadvantages. These are:

Pros

• Out-of-home advertising is the best advertising medium to inform the moving population.
• It gives the public a lasting impression of the brand as they are installed for a fairly long period and, in turn, increase audience engagement.
• They offer advertisers the most cost-effective method to increase their brand awareness.
• Additionally, they can be installed in various hotspots with high footfall, such as a city center, train stations, bus stations, commercial hubs, shopping markets, etc. 

Cons

• Outdoor advertisements can convey only a limited amount of information to the public about a brand or a service.
• Billboards, ads on transits, and posters are all meant to be seen within the span of a few seconds. This, in turn, makes it very difficult for people to take down the contact information.
• Because of the high frequency of exposure, outdoor may lead to quick wear out. People are likely to get tired of seeing the same ad every day.
• The outdoor advertisement’s effectiveness cannot be easily measured, and it is doubtful whether it will provide action value.

Bottom-Line?

These days, out-of-home advertising is stronger than ever. As technology continues to improve, OOH’s capabilities continue to expand.

Hopefully, this article helped you understand the meaning, different types, and importance of OOH in widening a brand’s reach.

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