The ad you_can't skip

01

When to invest in out-of-home

Out-of-home fits when a campaign has to be seen widely in one region in a short time, when a launch needs a visible start, or when a store or branch wants to remind people of itself close to where they buy. The same channel can build awareness in the city and support an offer near the store. The job is chosen by the campaign's objective.

Where out-of-home sits and how much weight it gets is decided in the media plan, once the media strategy has set the channel's job. It is usually planned alongside channels where an interested person can look for more or buy straight away, such as search, social or an online store.

02

Where and when the audience moves

60 %* visit their own city centre at least weekly. The gap between age groups is small: 68 %* of 18 to 29-year-olds go to the centre every week, and 58 % of 60 to 74-year-olds. Out-of-home can therefore also reach young adults, whom traditional TV reaches less well.

Holidays change the rhythm. 62 %* say they spend more time out of home than usual during holidays, and 32 %, about 1 268 000 people, clearly more. The display period and times of day are chosen by when the audience is on the move, and the holiday season can change which locations are worth buying.

In our campaigns a shopping centre, a transport hub and a street have reached different people in different situations,** so we choose the location by what the campaign has to do.

03

Direct buys, digital screens and programmatic

Out-of-home is bought in three ways. In a direct buy we negotiate the sites and periods with the media owner, and the site is reserved for the campaign for the agreed time. On a digital screen the ad appears in rotation with other ads and can be scheduled for particular times of day. In a programmatic buy (pDOOH) digital screens are bought by impression, and budget can be moved during the campaign to the locations that perform better against the objective.

The buying method depends on whether the campaign needs a specific site for the whole period or flexible visibility across several regions. The methods can also be combined in one campaign.

04

An asset for a single glance

A passer-by sees the ad for a few seconds, usually on the move. The message has room for one point and the brand, the text has to read at a glance and the image has to stand out from a distance. In our campaigns the vertical format has carried the impressions.** Being visible does not guarantee attention. The location, the size and the message decide whether a passer-by notices the ad.

The campaign idea usually comes from the advertising agency, and we help fit it to the screen sizes and produce the versions needed, such as an offer version shown near the store. Digital screens need their own sizes and file formats, and assets for printed sites are delivered well before the period starts.

05

How we buy and report

We choose sites and screens by where the audience moves and buy them directly from the media owner or programmatically. In reporting we keep delivered impressions and the media owner's estimated contact figure apart. In our campaigns the same buy has produced a cost per contact several times higher or lower depending on which figure it was calculated from,** so we always record which one we use.

The effect of out-of-home cannot be read from clicks. If recall or awareness needs to be known, it is measured with a campaign study.

* NØRR3 Media Insights, wave 9, Norstat panel, August 2026, n = 2 022, aged 18 to 74, margin of error up to ±2.2 percentage points. Age groups: 18 to 29-year-olds n = 400 (±4.6 percentage points), 60 to 74-year-olds n = 559 (±4.1 percentage points). Time out of home during holidays = the respondent's own estimate. ** NØRR3's own campaign bank, campaign reports 2024–2026: each lesson recurs in campaigns across at least two industries and two advertisers.