Advertising is a very important for any commercial activity. Without proper advertisement, no commercial organization would be able to survive. It is through advertisement that people would come to know about the products or services that a company could provide.



For a small company, it is not possible to spend lots of money advertising. Therefore, they may use the medium of outdoor advertising for their advertisement. But, this medium of advertising is used by large companies like AT & T, American Express, IBM, Procter & Gamble, McDonalds and many others too. This is because offers outstanding value against money. The reach of outdoor advertising is quite huge and reaches people in their cars, in subways, airports or malls and many other ways when they are outside of their home.

Now outdoor advertising could be broken into four major groups: Billboard, Street Furniture, Alternative Media, Transit and Radio.

Billboard advertising is the oldest method of outdoor advertising and still it is most effective. A few advantages of this kind of advertisement are:

1The advertisement provides an attractive and eye catching exposure throughout day and night for 24 hours.

2These advertisements provide clear message and the environment could be customized.

3The advertising campaign could be done even in suburbs and rural area where other media types do not reach the people effectively.

Street furniture advertising mainly consists of advertisement on bus shelters and other urban furniture, kiosks, shopping malls etc. The campaign could be targeted for a specific segment of the population or could be meant for all kinds of people. They could be used in densely populated urban areas as well as on suburban roadways. This type of advertising is also effective to generate high awareness and brand recognition near a point of purchase.

Alternative Media and Transit advertising reaches to the people who are on move either in a bus, taxi, train or airplane or even walking on foot. The advertisement is visible any time of the day or night especially effective during rush hours. Originally Alternative Media advertising was developed for urban centers, but it has now developed into a separate medium by itself. It has developed a lot from the days when it was only a printed poster.

Outdoor advertising campaigns are now being developed to target different groups of people, different locations. Outdoor marketing strategies are being developed many different requirement of an advertiser.