8 OOH (Out of Home) Advertising Examples

Communicating with your target audience is one of the most effective brand awareness tactics. In recent years, the advertising industry has evolved beyond traditional channels into more interactive and digital markets. Out-of-home (OOH) advertising is just one of the umbrellas of advertising that more and more businesses are experimenting with.

What is out-of-home advertising? OOH advertising, or in some markets, outdoor advertising, refers to advertising that reaches consumers outside of their homes. Think about a major billboard in Times Square for the latest superhero movie or a CoverGirl ad displayed at a shopping mall kiosk – that is OOH advertising at work. OOH ads can help target consumers when they’re stuck in traffic or commuting on public transportation from work. Compared to other media channels, OOH advertising produces the highest levels of consumer recall, along with being unskippable. 

But how can small businesses recreate these traditional OOH tactics? Especially since the programmatic buying of OOH ads has made real-time purchasing possible for companies of all sizes. The global OOH advertising market was also valued at $28.48 billion in 2023.

This article will dive into the benefits, types, and examples of OOH advertising that might make your business reconsider whether OOH advertising should be part of your marketing strategy within the next few years.

Benefits of OOH Advertising

OOH advertising supports the full sales funnel, guiding customers from awareness to consideration and action.

Like other types of advertising, OOH advertising provides brands with an opportunity to convey powerful messages to consumers. Here are a few benefits of launching OOH campaigns for businesses:

• Broader reach & exposure: OOH placements in high-traffic areas can deliver continuous, unavoidable visibility. This form of advertising is considered the most effective offline medium for driving online activity.
• Strong visual impact: Large-scale formats and bold creative executions command attention, making messages more memorable.
• Interactivity: Digital OOH encourages participants to engage with QR codes, motion sensors, AR, and other touchpoints.
• Leveraging shareability: Standout installations inspire people to capture & share their experiences, amplifying reach. 

Together, these benefits make OOH a powerful advertising tool for building awareness, driving engagement, and generating cultural impact. 

Types of OOH Advertising

OOH ads can take different forms. Some popular ones include:

• Billboards: Large print ads displayed on high elevated boards that are placed in high foot traffic areas or along roadside locations.
• Transit Advertising: Ads found on public transportation, like bus wraps and posters.
• Place-Based Media: Ads in locations like airports, malls, and gyms.
• Point-of-Sale Advertising: Ads used to draw consumer attention during purchases. Think of ads at the checkout counter.
• Street Furniture: Ads found on sidewalks, kiosks, newsstands, bus shelters, benches, and more.
• Digital Out of Home (DOOH) Advertising: An interactive advertising method that uses a digital medium like digital signage or display screens. DOOH advertising allows for dynamic messaging that can be alterned in real-time, and it can also be targeted to specific demographics, locations, and times of day. 

By leveraging this mix of formats, brands can tailor their message to the moment and create memorable experiences. 

Innovative & Experiential OOH Formats

Innovative OOH advertising goes beyond traditional billboards, embracing formats that surprise, engage, and immerse audiences in unexpected ways. Experiential marketing plays a crucial role in this evolution by creating interactive, real-world brand experiences that invite participation and foster emotional connection. These experiences often extend their reach through social sharing, turning physical encounters into amplified digital conversations.

Another powerful approach is guerrilla marketing, which leverages unconventional placements and bold creativity to disrupt everyday environments. Often categorized as ambient media, these executions integrate seamlessly into their surroundings while delivering a surprising brand message. 

Brands can also explore high-impact formats, such as large-scale wallscapes, mobile billboard activations, and targeted place-based media.

Together, these innovative OOH formats provide a diverse toolkit for building awareness, engagement, and lasting brand impressions. 

Targeting Audiences with Programmatic DOOH

Programmatic DOOH (pDOOH) transforms digital out-of-home advertising by automating the buying and selling of ad space through data-driven platforms. By combining technology with real-time audience measurement, pDOOH enables advanced geotargeting, ensuring ads are delivered to specific demographics at precise locations and times of day. This approach allows brands to move beyond broad reach and instead focus on more relevant, context-aware location-based advertising. 

Using geolocation data and geofencing, pDOOH connects messaging to real-world movement patterns, reaching consumers where they are. Additionally, DOOH supports dynamic creatives that can be updated instantly based on live triggers like local events or traffic levels. This real-time action increases relevance, responsiveness, and overall campaign effectiveness by aligning the message with the moment. 

8 OOH Ad Examples

Here are some popular examples of OOH advertising campaigns that have made a viral impact. Since these are high-profile cases, their performance might vary by market or location. Explore these to give your team actionable insights and takeaways that they can apply to their own OOH advertising campaigns. 

1. Apple
2. Bumble
3. Compassionate Farming
4. Sofi Stadium & Samsung Infinity
5. Coca Cola
6. Spotify
7. Bupkis
8. McDonald’s

Apple

Apple’s Shot on iPhone billboards are a clear example of an out-of-home ad.

These campaigns are designed to capture universal images that appeal to anyone with an iPhone, particularly with the interactive element of featuring real-world customers in the images. Users around the world can submit their own photos with a chance of being selected. This originally started as a digital marketing campaign before evolving into an OOH ad tactic.

By showcasing a select few in eye-catching billboards, Apple is encouraging consumers to submit their own content when purchasing an iPhone that can capture visually stunning images.

According to Apple, the campaign helped achieve a brand retention rate of up to 90%, strong social engagement, and significant media impressions. 

If a brand wants to replicate this kind of campaign, they should focus on leveraging their customers as creators, optimize for authenticity, and look for ways to measure beyond immediate sales. 

Bumble

Finding ways to build connections was a common theme across all demographics in 2020, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bumble, the dating app, created a series of digital billboards as an ad for their service.

With the bright yellow background, the billboards also tied their message with a current event that created a quick connection with audiences. This kind of humor felt empathetic and authentic, not tone deaf, by helping to acknowledge the shared weirdness of 2020, making Bumble feel more human and relatable. 

The campaign capitalized on a collective emotional moment: isolation, lockdown, and the desire for human connection. That emotional grounding increases the campaign’s resonance. 

Bumble’s campaign generated nearly 60 million impressions across the US, driving a spike in app usage where the campaign was run. 

For brands looking to replicate this campaign, consider messaging that is both timely and human-centered, yet bold. 

Compassionate Farming

In 2010, Compassionate in World Farming’s ‘Cows Belong in Fields’ campaign took over buses all over the United Kingdom.

The ads were run to encourage consumers to take action against mega-dairy, alerting them to donate and contact their representatives. While your business likely isn’t raising for a cause, transit ads are a great way to get the word out in a form of advertising.

On the policy front, their argument contributed to public debate, and their ongoing work has had expanded media coverage. 

Businesses can find ways to map their advertising to a real issue in order to leverage credibility. 

SoFi Stadium & Samsung

Hosted in SoFi Stadium, the digital display is a product of Samsung. The Infinity Display is a prime example of digital OOH.

It is the largest digital sports signage seen in outdoor media. The system is a great promotion for Samsung products, as well as a good way for other companies to get involved in digital out-of-home advertising with their own ad formats. DOOH advertising only works if eyes are on the product; what better way than advertising at a stadium?

Brands can achieve a similar effect by creating immersive campaigns that generate buzz. 

Coca Cola

In 2016, Coca Cola explored interactivity at bus shelters in Singapore with their ‘Taste the Feeling’ ad campaigns.

In partnership with Clear Channel, the outdoor campaigns allowed passers to create GIFs using a series of Coke filters. After posing for photos, users were then granted a reward – a QR code voucher for a free Coke. 

Clear Channel noted heightened engagement levels at these bus shelters on social media, as well as high voucher redemption rates. 

This is a clear example of how businesses can utilize innovation in out-of-home media. Make interactivity simple, fun, and highly visual. 

Spotify 

Spotify Wrapped is a popular seasonal campaign that pops up on social media. In 2022, Spotify introduced gamified billboard advertising. 

With different digital screens in various ad spaces, Spotify used data from their listeners to use playful insights for their advertising media. 

Other boards used games like fill-in-the-blanks and word searches to encourage passers to find out more information about listeners all over the globe. 

This DOOH campaign was a hit for the music streamer, combining eye-catching digital ads with their own data. Their ad revenue in 2022 increased by 19% year over year, alongside a rise in brand recognition. 

Brands can find inexpensive ways to gamify their OOH advertising by incorporating simple games or quizzes. 

Bupkis 

In 2023, Pete Davidson released his semi-autobiographical show ‘Bupkis’ on Peacock. The former Saturday Night Live star was back in New York with this digital billboard in Times Square. 

While this ad doesn’t reveal much about the show’s content to drive viewers, it effectively uses graphics and visuals to stop passersby from taking a look at the digital display.  

McDonald’s  

The popular fast food chain is considered one of the founders of innovative OOH advertising due to their creative, highly recognizable advertising media on billboards, train stations, and other outdoor ad spaces.  

In 2021, McDonald’s installed ‘walk thru’ billboards in London neighborhoods as a promotional ad with the convenience of a food truck.  

Users could purchase a McFlurry through the billboard, offering instant gratification. This innovative OOH idea was also timely, as it was launched during the height of social distancing.  

Key Considerations for OOH Media Planning

Successful OOH campaigns begin with thoughtful media planning and a clearly defined location strategy. Placing ads in environments where the target audience naturally lives, works, or travels increases visibility and relevance, especially given the viewer's limited attention span. Strategic placement ensures the message is seen quickly and frequently, maximizing impact within brief exposure moments. 

Equally important is understanding and complying with local regulations and zoning laws, which can vary widely by city or region and directly affect available formats and placements. OOH is most powerful when integrated into a broader omnichannel marketing strategy, serving as the most effective offline medium for driving online activity. When planned holistically alongside digital and social channels, OOH reinforces messaging, boosts recall, and strengthens overall campaign performance. 

Creative Principles for Effective OOH Design

Effective OOH design starts with understanding the brief viewing window in which audiences encounter the message. Whether seen from a moving vehicle or across a busy street, OOH ads often have only a few seconds to make an impression. This reality makes concise messaging essential.

A proven guideline for achieving this clarity is the seven-word-or-less rule. Limiting copy ensures instant readability and comprehension, even at a distance or at speed. Strong typography paired with bold, high-contrast visuals and colors improves legibility across varying viewing distance conditions, helping the message stand out in visually crowded environments and remain easy to process at a glance.

Finally, effective OOH creative should guide audiences toward a clear next step. A simple and direct CTA (a short URL or QR code, for example) bridges the gap between offline exposure and online engagement. By keeping the CTA as streamlined as the message itself, brands can maximize recall, interaction, and impact long after the moment of exposure has passed. 

Gauging Campaign Success & ROI

Measuring the effectiveness of OOH has traditionally been a challenge, particularly for static formats where direct response is harder to track. However, KPIs like ROI help frame OOH's value. Metrics such as impressions and CPM also provide standardized ways to evaluate reach and compare cost-effectiveness against other media channels. 

For DOOH, modern measurement techniques have significantly improved transparency and accountability. 

OOH Ad Campaigns Amplify Your Services  

Out-of-home advertising continues to expand as more and more companies choose to invest in their brand’s reach. OOH marketing campaigns capture the attention of customers as they go about their everyday routines - does your service need to be at the forefront of their minds when waiting at the bus stop? Businesses need to consider their own products, budget, and company mission before investigating OHH ad opportunities to ensure they are a good fit for their marketing strategies.  

Explore OOH advertising agencies on Clutch by filtering through verified reviews.

About the Author

Anna Peck Content Marketing Manager at Clutch

Anna Peck is a content marketing manager at Clutch, where she crafts content on digital marketing, SEO, and public relations. In addition to editing and producing engaging B2B content, she plays a key role in Clutch’s awards program and contributed content efforts. Originally joining Clutch as part of the reviews team, she now focuses on developing SEO-driven content strategies that offer valuable insights to B2B buyers seeking the best service providers.

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