You Are Visually Attacked! Do You Know?
Out-of-Door Media Platforms are everywhere.
They exist in every corner of our city from train stations to airports to malls to street-side billboards. Yet, they do not just exist within commercial centers. They have found their way into our neighbourhood.
I love to take morning walks around my neighbourhood. It gives me a sense of reality and connection as my day job requires me to be at my desk and interacting with people virtually while punching the keyboard.
Having real physical attention with the surroundings is a way to bring me back to the World that I belong to. One that is real, with humans actually occupying a bloc of space, accompanied by the goodness of a Sun bath with light breeze blowing into my hair.
As a consultant by training, I love to observe.
As a professional in the digital marketing space, I love to watch what catches my attention.
And why.
What caught my attention this morning has nothing to do with my smartphone or anything to do with 1s and 0s. It has to do with Out-of-Door Media.
Out-of-Door Media — The way I understand it — is a plethora of platforms in the physical world designed for marketing purposes. Billboards, posters, banners, lightboxes, paper advertisements, brochures all serve this function.
In the Age where Digital Media hasn’t come into being, the ability for any brand to be omnipresent is through Out-of-Door Media.
It is, till today, one of the dominant ways of hijacking attention from rush-hour working professionals and students on their way to school.
These Out-of-Door media platforms aren’t present only in routes catered to peak hour traffic.
They are all around in our neighbourhoods and a little attention away from our smartphones will allow us to notice their existence.
And for this morning, I did.
There are a few different types of Out-Of-Door Media platforms within my neighbourhood that caters to different purposes.
Some standalone, others congregate.
Marketing attempts by small businesses are often targeted as they do not have the deep pockets to cast a wide net. Maintenance and service businesses such as air-con repair is one example. They tend to be tied to the municipal and town councils where they operate and they market their services to the immediate precincts they serve. Contact numbers, simple taglines and fixed price are information that they present as they chase business from budget conscious households. No elaborate Call-To-Actions are required.
Ministries engage in large-scale and simple marketing efforts as well. Banners with the purpose of broadcast awareness is in itself a loud one in terms of message and colours.
These banners are principally designed to be as visually assaulting as they possibly can in order to get the immediate attention of neighbourhood dwellers.
These messages could be channeling attention to the rising cases of detected COVID infections, skyrocketing dengue fever cases, killer litter and many others. They tend to be placed at areas where people will have to stop, such as traffic lights, bus stops and train station entrances.
There are also posters that food-store owners use to promote limited time only offers. These are not the national chains that people think of. These are the one-shop, mum-and-pop stores that are opened by those who seek a simple living.
Many of them operate in the countless coffee-shops within one neighbourhood selling the same food item. Bakeries, Western Food, Chinese Cuisine food-stores fall into this category. As they tend to be localised in terms of their business, so are their promotional efforts.
The same can be detected for tuition centres and / or individual tuition services that are deep into the precinct.
Bus Shelter advertising media platforms can be found all over the neighbourhood as well. That is a given as they are pegged to the number of bus stops present. 2 separate individual Out-of-Door media stands means 4 faces (1 stand has 2 faces) that could be deployed for advertising purposes.
Unlike those in the commercial districts, advertisements running at the neighbourhoods tend to be geared towards household convenience such as vacuum-robots. coffee-makers, fresh farm produce, fast-food campaigns and many more.
And unlike those mentioned in the above, this media platform updates their posters and advertisements as more neighbourhood household brands starts to spend more on localised marketing.
Out-of-Door Media in itself is an experience that is tagged to the outdoor physical environment.
They are designed to be present in places where our legs take us, even at the most obscure corners.
In this day and age where our eyes are glued to our smartphones for entertainment and education, Out-of-Door Media has become a temporary respite from the endless engagement with our smartphones.
And after all, it doesn’t hurt to find out the nearest bakeries running a 30% discount promotion.
Now that catches my attention.
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About the Author:
As a Consultant by training, I believe in making the complex simple.
Because simplicity adds value.
Simplicity helps us gain clarity, and clarity helps us to grow.
And if we are not growing, then what’s the point of anything else?
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