What is political advertising, and why is it crucial for campaigns? Using Out of Home media for political campaigns is a powerful strategy that is often overlooked or under-utilized. Marketing for political campaigns needs to use every tool available to maximize the reach of its messaging and ensure it reaches the appropriate audiences as efficiently as possible.
Out of Home media for political campaigns is very useful for a number of reasons. Let’s take a look at why OOH media should be an integral part of any campaign strategy.
Maximizing Reach and Impact: How OOH Media Enhances Political Campaigns
Whether you are running a national, regional, or local campaign, Out of Home media for political campaigns offers unmatched scalability and reach. One of the hallmarks of OOH media is that it can reach large and diverse audiences efficiently, effectively, and at scale, and it can do so without breaking the media budget. Campaigns can target multiple markets simultaneously, achieving large-scale exposure. According to the OAAA, Out of Home media reaches 93% of the U.S. population on a weekly basis.
OOH advertising helps candidates build name recognition and familiarity among voters, which can be crucial in crowded political races. Studies have shown that OOH media delivers higher recall rates (86%) than any other media channel.
Billboards along major highways, transit ads in urban centers, and airport signage can blanket entire regions or even entire states, making OOH advertising a powerful tool for reaching voters. Large scale reach, along with the frequency of Out of Home helps build name recognition among voters.
Out of Home Media for Political Campaigns Provides Hyperlocal Targeting and Community Focus:
While Out of Home media for political campaigns can have broad, large-scale reach, it can also be highly targeted. The media can be tailored to target specific geographic areas or communities, allowing campaigns to connect with voters on a local level. This offers several benefits to candidates.
First, it allows the campaign to deploy media to areas of need. Because voting is geographically based, and candidates know from polling where they are leading or lagging, they can bring OOH media to bear on the areas where it will have the most effect. This not only helps drive the campaign but also helps with effective budget allocation.
This localized approach can also resonate with voters, as it demonstrates that the candidate understands and cares about their community’s specific concerns and needs. By using a localized approach, the campaign can also tailor their messaging to suit that specific community. Messaging can be customized to address local issues that resonate with specific communities. They can highlight how the candidate’s policies or solutions can positively impact the voters in that geographic area. They can also be used to showcase endorsements from community leaders or organizations that hold influence within that area or with that audience.
If your campaign is targeting diverse communities with different languages or cultural backgrounds, ensure that your OOH messaging is translated and culturally sensitive. Use culturally relevant imagery and messaging to connect with these communities on a deeper level.
Cost-Effectiveness of OOH Media: Stretching Campaign Budgets Further
Out of Home media for political campaigns can do all this without breaking the bank. Political campaigns often operate on tight budgets, making cost-effectiveness a top priority. Out of Home media consistently has one of the lowest CPMs of any media channel.
OOH advertising offers excellent value for money. In addition to the generally low CPM, much OOH media has longer dwell times, particularly when compared to online media, which enhances the actual value of the impression. Out of Home is also not subject to ad-blockers, getting stuck below the fold, or being ignored during a commercial break when someone gets up for a snack. The always-on, always-visible nature of OOH media further enhances its value in ways that can’t be calculated by a simple CPM.
Synergy Across Channels: Integrating OOH with Other Media for Greater Impact
Any well-orchestrated ad campaign will include a variety of media channels to optimize its effectiveness. Out of Home excels at working synergistically to support other media channels, improve their effectiveness, and drive consumer activity.
The ability of Out of Home media for political campaigns to improve the performance of other media holds a couple of benefits for candidates. On the most basic level it means that your advertising is going to be more effective, which is the ultimate goal. But beyond that it also means that including OOH helps your budget work harder. Going back to the importance of maximizing budget, if OOH can help you get more effect out of the same budget, it should certainly be an integral part of the media plan.
Consistency helps reinforce the candidate’s message and brand identity, so be sure that OOH messaging aligns with the campaign’s messaging across other media channels, including digital, print, and social media.
The Flexibility of Digital Out of Home (DOOH) Media in Rapid Campaign Response
Campaign messaging can turn on a dime. The focus of messaging can change based on current events, statements by other candidates, and news items related to topics like the economy. Candidates need to have the ability to change their messaging quickly to respond. Out of Home is there to help.
By employing digital Out of Home (DOOH) assets, creatives can be changed almost as quickly as they are developed. Candidates can also run multiple creatives on one digital asset, allowing them to address different aspects of their campaign while maintaining the same space and branding assets.
The variety of media formats also allows for different levels of content. Bulletins, posters, and buses can provide top-level awareness, while media with longer dwell times and closer reads – like transit shelters, bus interiors, commuter rail, and a variety of place-based media – allow for longer messaging with more content and calls to action.
And while DOOH provides high-speed flexibility, this doesn’t discount traditional static OOH. A campaign is a marathon, not a sprint, and within the context of those timelines, traditional OOH can easily be updated to accommodate changes in campaign messaging.
Conclusion: A Winning Strategy for Political Campaigns
Incorporating Out of Home advertising into a political campaign’s media mix is a winning strategy. It allows campaigns to target niche audiences, operate cost-effectively, reinforce their message through various formats, seamlessly tie into digital and online media efforts, reach underserved and rural/remote audiences, and deliver large-scale reach and scalability across different markets.
It’s a powerful tool in the modern campaigner’s toolkit, delivering maximum impact and bolstering the path to electoral success. When you’re building the media plan for your campaign, remember that OOH advertising isn’t just an option; it’s a must-have for reaching and winning over voters.
