DOOH Ad Examples and Creative Best Practices

The last few years have been a tale of two channels—connected TV (CTV) and digital out-of-home (DOOH)—in programmatic advertising.

While streaming numbers have surged since 2020, DOOH fell flat as people worked from home more and travelled less.

Now, with recent innovations in the space and new opportunities for advertisers, DOOH is rebounding. 

EMARKETER reports that DOOH ad spending in the US will increase 11.2% in 2024 to reach $3.2 billion USD. In Europe, DOOH is growing even faster, with a forecasted annual growth rate in 2024 of 14.2% in the UK, 19.5% in France, and 13.7% in Germany. By 2027, DOOH will comprise 75% of the UK’s total out-of-home (OOH) advertising market.

Despite its monumental growth and many benefits—including high visibility, precise audience targeting, and dynamic creative capabilities—DOOH is still a relatively new advertising channel, and many brands aren’t taking advantage of it.

If you or your client is new to DOOH, read on for some DOOH ad examples and tips on how to create successful DOOH campaigns.

What Is DOOH Advertising and Why Are Advertisers Embracing It?

DOOH is a type of advertising that uses digital billboards, signage, and screens to show ads in high-traffic areas. These places include shopping malls, bus stops, airports, elevators, grocery stores, gas stations, and other busy locations. 

Because DOOH combines the flexibility and precision of digital advertising with the broad reach and visibility of traditional OOH advertising, it has emerged as an ideal method for engaging audiences beyond their IP addresses and in public places as they go about their daily lives. 

In a 2023 survey from Proximic, 7% of advertisers said DOOH was the most effective ad medium for brand marketing. In a separate survey from the Out of Home Advertising Association of America and The Harris Poll, 76% of consumers reported watching a video, dining at a restaurant, or shopping at a store after viewing a DOOH ad, making DOOH a powerful tool for driving consumer action and brand engagement.

Although a reported 27% of OOH advertising in 2023 was for local services and attractions, due to its enhanced targeting, cost-effectiveness, and easy integration with existing multi-channel strategies, DOOH is increasingly being used by everyone from B2B to travel marketers to do things like target customers with personalized messaging outside industry conferences or encourage them to explore culinary hotspots in world-renowned locations.

Types of DOOH Advertising

Although there are many locations where you can place DOOH ads, there are three main formats to consider when deciding which ones are the best fit for your DOOH campaigns.

Large Format DOOH Ads

True to their name, these types of DOOH ads take up the most space and are strategically placed in high-traffic areas to maximize visibility and brand awareness. Types of large format DOOH ads include digital billboards alongside roads or highways, wallscapes on the sides of buildings, street furniture like benches or bus shelters, and urban panels above subway entrances.

The main goal of large format DOOH ads is to reach a broad audience, making it an effective format for product launches, major events, and maximizing awareness.

Place-Based DOOH Ads

This type of DOOH ad is typically found in locations that match the audience’s interests, such as shopping malls, airports, gyms, universities, medical offices, movie theatres, office building elevators, and public transit hubs. By selecting locations based on the audience and leveraging real-time data, advertisers can tailor their messages to fit the environment. For example, ads for protein shakes often work well in locations like gyms, while quick-service restaurant ads are better suited to gas stations where consumers could be thinking about grabbing a quick bite while on the go.

By strategically choosing placements and using programmatic technology, advertisers can use place-based DOOH ads to connect with the right audience and optimize their ad campaigns for greater efficiency and return on investment.

Point-of-Purchase DOOH Ads

This type of DOOH ad is designed to influence shoppers at the critical moment when they’re most likely to make an impulse purchase or be swayed in their decision-making process. Because of this, point-of-purchase DOOH ads are particularly effective for consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands—like snacks, beverages, and personal care products—but they also work well for promoting seasonal products and special offers. These ads are commonly found near checkout counters, product displays, end caps, entrances, in-store kiosks, deli counters, and gas station pumps.

Benefits of DOOH Advertising

Unlike traditional OOH, DOOH ads are unskippable, appear in contextually relevant environments without relying on 1st or 3rd-party data, and can even be used for retargeting.

Here are some more benefits of using programmatic DOOH over traditional OOH advertising:

Traditional OOH	Programmatic DOOH
Static Creatives Traditional OOH relies on a single, unchanging ad displayed for your entire campaign. Once the creative is up, it stays there, regardless of environmental changes, time of day, changing market dynamics, audience behaviour or engagement.	Dynamic, Flexible Creatives DOOH ads can appear as static images, animations or videos. They can also be tailored to your audience based on the time of day or weather conditions and adjusted as necessary, ensuring your message remains relevant and engaging to your audience.
Long-Term Commitments Traditional outdoor advertising campaigns typically require weeks-to-months-long contracts. While this ensures consistent exposure, it also means that you’re committed to a single message without the ability to adjust ads based on changes in performance or strategy.	Agile Campaign Management Unlike traditional OOH, Programmatic DOOH often provides advertisers with short-term, flexible commitments. Campaigns can be launched, adjusted or paused in near real time, allowing you to optimize campaigns and ensure your marketing budget is used efficiently.
Slower Activations Launching a traditional OOH campaign involves several steps, including creative production, approval processes, and physical installation. This means seeing your ad in public can take weeks or even months.	Quicker Activations With DOOH, advertisers can use a programmatic advertising platform to quickly launch campaigns without stepping foot on site and make changes as needed to ensure your brand message and ads remain relevant.
Lacks Consumer Interaction Traditional OOH is a one-way communication medium. This means that consumers can see an ad but can’t interact with it directly. This passive exposure limits engagement, forcing advertisers to rely solely on repeated views and proper placement to make an impact and drive action.	Interactive and Engaging DOOH integrates interactive elements like QR codes and touch screens that encourage user engagement. This enhances the user experience and also provides advertisers with data they can use to measure and understand the impact campaigns have on sales or store visits.
Limited Measurement Traditional OOH often lacks precise metrics for measuring campaign performance. While you can estimate impressions based on traffic data, there’s no direct feedback on how many people engaged with or were influenced by your outdoor ads. This makes it challenging to demonstrate ROI or optimize future campaigns.	Stronger Reporting With DOOH, advertisers can access insights on impressions from built-in sensors that track the number of unique devices passing by an ad, and use brand lift studies to gauge engagement and boosts in brand awareness. These data points allow you to measure the effectiveness of your campaigns and make data-informed adjustments.
Static Ad Slots With Limited Flexibility With traditional OOH, advertisers purchase ad space for fixed periods in specific locations. If the location or timing proves ineffective, there’s no way to reallocate resources or adjust the campaign until the contract ends.	Flexible Inventory Management With programmatic DOOH, advertisers can buy multiple slots within a single loop or from multiple locations, ensuring your ads get shown in the most effective spots and times for your target audience, maximizing reach, visibility, and overall campaign impact.

DOOH Advertising Examples and Best Practices

Although DOOH creatives share many similarities with traditional OOH, there are some specific design considerations to keep in mind when planning your DOOH campaigns.

Here, the StackAdapt Creative Studio team illustrates some DOOH creative best practices and tips with examples of DOOH ads they designed.

1. Avoid White Backgrounds

In LED technology, white doesn’t carry the same pop or vibrancy as other colours, so use darker colours to make your messaging, products, and services stand out.

Here’s a great DOOH ad the StackAdapt Creative Studio team mocked up as an example that uses a dark background to draw attention to Eko’s line of digital stethoscopes.

2. Take Time of Day Into Consideration

Knowing the ideal times you want your ads to appear is important for the ad messaging and layout creation process. 

For example, a DOOH ad promoting a place to grab ramen—like in this mockup designed by the Creative Studio team—would be more effective during the lunch hours and evening commute than at 6 am when people are probably just starting their day and looking for a quick coffee.

Also, be mindful of what colour palette you use. Rich, bold background colours work better during the day, while pastel colours are more vibrant at night.

3. Watch Your Font Sizes on Bigger Locations 

With large format DOOH ads, make sure the text is large enough to pass accessibility standards.

Here’s a DOOH ad example the Creative Studio designed that illustrates the point and stands out, even on a subway platform.

4. Avoid Button-Style CTAs

Unlike with native and display advertising, there is no click-out action with DOOH ads. Using a button-style CTA could confuse the viewer.

Instead, include QR codes that consumers can scan for more info—like in this DOOH ad example for a fictional tourism bus service—or URLs they can type into their mobile web browser and search for on their own.

5. Use Strong Focal Points   

Busy photos don’t translate well in DOOH ads, so choose graphic elements with a strong focal point.

Click below for a DOOH ad example the Creative Studio team designed for UK-based agency MOBSTA that boosted brand awareness and generated over 14 million impressions with its simple yet stunning design.

Benefits of Programmatic DOOH Advertising

While buying traditional OOH advertising mostly involves direct negotiations with media owners, the emergence of programmatic DOOH has helped streamline the process for advertisers wanting to secure ad space in public.

According to EMARKETER, DOOH inventory is increasingly available via DSPs, and the amount of DOOH ads transacted programmatically is expected to surpass $1 billion USD in 2025.

Experts say that’s because programmatic has democratized the ad-buying process for DOOH, allowing advertisers to launch and experiment with the channel even if they only have a modest budget.

The ability to easily adapt creative campaigns, reach target audiences globally, and use data triggers based on location and weather makes adding DOOH to your media mix a no-brainer for marketers looking to reach a wider audience.

Measuring DOOH Advertising Campaigns

Thanks to advancements in technology and data analytics, it’s easier than ever to measure the impact DOOH advertising has on your campaign success.

Here are some methods and metrics you can use to understand how your DOOH ads are performing:

• Impressions: Many digital displays and screens use built-in sensors that track the number of unique devices passing by a DOOH ad to gauge how many times an ad was seen, making DOOH more accurate than traditional OOH.
• Brand Awareness: Advertisers can use brand lift studies, in which survey responses from an exposed group (people who have seen an ad) are compared to a control group (those who haven’t) to better understand the “lift” generated by a DOOH campaign. This is particularly helpful for measuring ad recall, consideration, and purchase intent.
• Foot Traffic: Footfall attribution can be used to measure the increase in visitors to a physical location after viewing a DOOH campaign, providing brick and mortar retailers with tangible evidence that an ad is driving potential customers to its stores, and giving advertisers data they can use to refine their strategy and enhance the ROI of their DOOH campaigns.

What’s Next for DOOH Advertising?

As anyone who’s seen the mind-bending 3D graphics of Samsung’s recent OOH campaign can attest, we’re only beginning to see DOOH advertising’s full potential.

Expect advancements in AI to improve forecasting, optimize ad spend, and help advertisers dynamically adjust their content in real time, augmented reality and interactive elements to increase engagement and enhance attribution, and programmatic DOOH to continue growing in popularity due to its reach, cost-effectiveness, and ease of use.

To learn more about DOOH advertising and see some DOOH ad examples in action, request a demo of StackAdapt.