Outdoor Network has grown its digital national large format network to five highway sites. The three 4.5m x 18m large format digital billboards are situated in Gauteng and the other two in KwaZulu-Natal. The company plans to grow its national network extensively, with the goal to offer advertisers a large format, national highway digital network.
KZN is currently home to a large double-sided digital billboard on the M3 highway on the outskirts of the Durban CBD, facing all east-bound traffic from the N3, N2 and Pietermaritzburg into the CBD, and the south and west-bound traffic exiting the city.
The Gauteng sites are situated in Paulshof (double-sided), on the N1 highway in close proximity to the busy Rivonia Road off-ramp, and Crown Mines (single-sided), on the M1 South, facing traffic travelling from Johannesburg to Soweto – another high-traffic ‘signature’ location.
This initial roll-out of premium highway sites in Gauteng and KZN means that Outdoor Network is already offering an attractive network of large format digital sites in locations with exposure to upper income groups and with high reach and frequency.
Collectively, Outdoor Network’s five large format digital billboards reach approximately 3.38 million consumers a month, largely in the upper income category, making these sites the ideal the platform for brands looking to engage with a large audience in this market segment.
Jacques du Preez, CEO of the Provantage Media Group said, ’Our focus is on building a comprehensive large format national digital network, but we will be selective, concentrating on signature sites that can deliver significant value to our advertisers, in the form of impressive audience reach figures and platforms that can effectively drive targeted advertising messages.’
With more and more marketing budget moving to online advertising in the form of social media, search etc, digital has become a preferred platform for many brands and advertisers, and digital Out of Home (DOOH) has proved itself as an effective bridge between the virtual and ‘real’ worlds, amplifying campaigns, complementing online strategies, and driving engagement across a host of channels.
Backing up this assertion is a 2017 Nielsen study which shows that ‘online activations including search, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram activity generated by Out-of-Home indexes at about four times the expected rate given its relative ad spend.’
‘Out of Home’s connection to digital media is undeniable,’ said Nancy Fletcher, President and CEO of the Outdoor Advertising Association of American (OAAA), in the same study. ‘OOH campaigns boost online engagement more than other traditional media can. As digital ad spend increases, so does Out-of-Homes’, because it drives people in the real world online.’
