Why You Should Invest in Airport Advertising

What is Airport Advertising?

The travel bug was forced to lay dormant for a while but now it’s ready to fly. Travel is back in full force and people are ready to take full advantage.

It’s time to start exploring the world again.

With the recent resurgence of travel comes a wealth of advertising opportunities. Frequent travelers often spend a lot of time in airports, and are typically in business or vacation mode, both of which lend themselves to a certain type of spending. This makes the airport a very fruitful OOH advertising hub. What is OOH, you may ask? Out of home advertising, a method that is pivotal to your marketing efforts.

If you’re a company looking to connect with your target audience in a new way, promoting in a major airport may be exactly what your marketing efforts need. In this guide, we’ll go over exactly what airport advertising is, how it works, why it works, and how it can boost your business.

 

What is Airport Advertising?

Airport advertising is any OOH or out-of-home advertising that you see when you’re within an airport. This type of transit advertising is very effective because it is able to achieve a wide reach.

 

What is OOH?

Out-of-home advertising is any kind of marketing visual that a consumer sees outside of their home. In essence, advertisements that don’t take place on a device such as a phone or laptop are OOH ads.

A few examples of the different forms of OOH include:

• Billboards
• Bulletins
• Posters
• Wallscapes
• Murals

Airport advertising includes any of the above that you see while you are within an airport, whether you’re taking an airport shuttle, walking the terminals, or shopping at the airport stores. Basically, any advertising space within an airport environment qualifies.

But the onset of DOOH has significantly boosted the airport advertising game.

 

What is DOOH?

What does DOOH mean? DOOH is digital out-of-home advertising. In the past, changing a static ad was a difficult, labor-intensive job that took a lot of time and money. Now that digital ads have become easily accessible, popular, and effective, the possibilities for advertising have increased exponentially, especially in an airport environment. Bus advertising is also a very common form of DOOH that is often used today.

Media buyers now have the choice of making airport advertisements interactive as well as dynamic and changing. This allows businesses the opportunity to create tightly targeted brand messaging.

 

What Are The Different Types of Airport Advertising?

There are many creative and dynamic options to choose from when deciding how to optimize your airport advertising budget.

First, think about just how extensive the airport experience is for a frequent flyer. From the moment consumers arrive at the airport, they may see an airport shuttle with a banner plastered on the side. Then, after making it through security, consumers sit down for a bite to eat and may reach for the tablet at the restaurant table to put in their order. As they scroll, digital ads pop up between menu items.

In short, every step of the airport experience presents an advertising opportunity.

The space of a major airport is huge while also having the unique benefit of being contained, making it prime real estate for advertising opportunities.

Let’s walk through some of the different options for airport advertising:

• Airport buses & shuttles – This includes static stickers that you see posted on the outside of buses as well as digital ads that you see on screens inside the buses and shuttles.

• Banners – These will vary greatly in size and can be plastered on the walls anywhere around the airport.

• Digital video screens –These are typically mounted to the walls and come in all sorts of shapes and sizes with the ability to constantly oscillate or remain the same.

• Spectaculars – These are typically a very large and bold piece, which makes them one of the more expensive options but makes it VERY hard for the consumer to miss.

• Digital kiosks – These are free-standing digital ads similar to where you’d find the map at a shopping mall, typically placed at a person’s eye level.

• Digital restaurant tablets – Many restaurants now offer ordering through a table tablet, it’ll often have games to play, access to wifi, etc—another smart spot to grab consumer’s attention.

• Luggage pushcarts – This is a unique and fun option because you won’t control exactly where the cart will go. Airport goers will push the cart around for you and expose your airport advertisement as they do so.

• Baggage claim displays – Airport dwellers often spend at least five to twenty minutes waiting for their bags at baggage claim, this is a clever time to attract them to your product.

 

Why Airport Advertising Is The Marketing Opportunity You Should Take Advantage Of

Travelers are often more willing to engage and spend while in “travel mode.”

The benefits of airport advertising include:

• Large foot traffic area
• 24/7 brand messaging
• Cost-effective
• An abundance of display options
• An unskippable and welcome distraction for the consumer

 

Captive Audience

People at the airport are a captive and attentive audience who are ready to engage with advertisements while they wait for their boarding call.

According to the OAAA, digital airport OOH engages consumers and drives action:

• When asked how often they noticed digital airport ads, 54% of study participants responded “all” or “most” of the time.
  
  
• 68% of study participants said they engaged in follow-up actions after they saw a digital airport ad. These actions included searching for a brand on a search engine, visiting the brand’s website, or stopping by the brand’s brick-and-mortar and social media locations.

These statistics show that creating an airport advertisement is an effective way to get travelers to engage with a brand and then buy the product. It isn’t enough for consumers to simply “consume” the ad, the idea is that after they see the ad they will make a purchase.

A Omnipresent and Welcome Distraction For Travelers

In general, OOH is hard for consumers to ignore because they are unable to skip, fast forward, or mute this type of advertising, as they can with digital media. This is even more prevalent for airport dwellers.

Travelers have to remain in the terminal until their flight leaves and are often looking for something to distract them while they wait. This makes it very likely that they will engage with the ads surrounding them at some point.

Travelers have time to kill in an airport and they’re often open and receptive to spend that time learning about or buying new products that are being advertised to them.

1 OAA. Digital Airport OOH Engages Consumers and Drives Engagement. https://oaaa.org/Portals/0/digitalairport.pdf

 

Travelers Are Ready to Spend

People who travel tend to have a certain amount of money that they are primed and ready to spend.

• Affluent travelers – People who travel regularly, typically tend to be on the affluent end of the economic spectrum and therefore are more likely to spend money on products that are advertised to them in the airport.

• Vacation mode travelers – People save up money for vacations and tend to feel more comfortable spending money on products when they are already in the mindset that they are on vacation and therefore it is okay to splurge.

• Business mode travelers – People who travel for business are often in the mindset of making deals, discovering new ideas, and exploring new territory, making them open and receptive to new products.

Each type of traveler offers a unique case, allowing media buyers to tailor their campaigns according to who they want to reach—is your target the traveler who only gets to go on two trips a year and is ready to have an amazing time, or is it for the businessman who takes the same six a.m. flight every Monday morning?

 

Optimize Your Airport Advertising

Once you’ve decided that airport advertising will be beneficial for your business you want to make sure you are going to use your budget wisely and efficiently—making sure you get the biggest bang for your advertising buck.

Things to consider:

• Location – Do you want to place a spectacular or will your target audience appreciate a smaller more nuanced kiosk display?

• Timing – Since a lot of advertising has gone digital you can decide exactly what and when your ads are shown.

• Is the message clear and precise? – Whatever campaign you decide on, make sure that the message you want to get across is strong, bold, and crisp.

• Will it attract consumers? – Do you want your message to be bold, flashy, and in your face? Or simple, cool, and laid back?

• Will it convert consumers to customers? – The airport will give your campaign the visibility it needs, all you have to do is look for the right method to grab the consumers’ attention and show them how your product will benefit them.

 

How True Impact Media Can Help with Your Airport Advertising Journey

Airports are endlessly moving, never sleeping hubs of hustle and bustle, which creates a deep well of advertising opportunity but it also means that navigating the large waters can feel very tricky. For example, billboard advertising in Fort Lauderdale presents many opportunities within its bustling airport scene. Strategically placing your brand message is essential to capture the attention of travelers and make a lasting impression. Figuring out how and where to put your airport advertising weight down may feel overwhelming, that’s where we help out.

Do you go big and get one spectacular right at the front of the terminal or do you go smaller and spread out in a few different hubs? Whatever your question, True Impact Media can help you move in the right pace and direction.

With True Impact’s universal OOH media buying platform, the previously cumbersome and clunky process of buying OOH in airports has become incredibly streamlined and stress-free.

True Impact Media is efficient, flexible, and built to help manage every aspect of your airport advertising campaigns from start to finish.

Make your media buying process more effective than ever, start advertising today!

 

Sources:

OAAA. Digital Airport OOH Engages Consumers and Drives Action.
https://oaaa.org/Portals/0/digitalairport.pdf

JCDecaux. Airport Advertising: 10 Reasons Why it Works.
https://www.jcdecaux.com/blog/airport-advertising-10-reasons-why-it-works

Billboard Insider. The Future of Advertising in US Airports.
https://www.billboardinsider.com/the-future-of-advertising-in-us-airports/

Nextbrand. Benefits of Airport Advertising.
https://nextbrand.com.vn/en/benefits-of-airport-advertising.html