Re-think your digital OOH screens as a platform for content, not just as a delivery mechanism for ads.
6 years ago, Tik Tok launched its Business Platform and delivered this now famous mantra :
> “Don’t Make Ads. Make TikToks”
This call to marketers was designed to help them re-think the way in which they build content for their platform, and importantly, to help them do it in such a way that people won’t immediately swipe it away
This is because the human brain tunes itself to patterns, and in advertising, this finely tuned spidey-sense we humans have developed in the modern advertising era teaches us to skip, swipe, and ignore ads. It doesn’t matter if those ads are online, on our phones, in magazines, on TV, or on billboards.
Yes, you can skip this ad
I saw a self-promo billboard recently that said something to the effect of “You can’t skip this ad”
Without a doubt, people can, and are, skipping your billboard ads. They are skipping them, because they contain no useful information, they are not-entertaining, they are boring, and they give no reason for a passer by to look up.
Why advertise on a billboard that contains a bunch of boring ads that nobody wants to look at?
Change the way that advertisers think about your screens.
One way you can accomplish this is by making your screens content-driven.
Here are 2 simple and effective content strategies
- Sports Scores
- News Headlines
Use your Available Space
Instead of giving away your available space, or, even worse (ughh), running an “Advertise With Us” ad, use your available space by filling it with useful content like news headlines and sports scores.
Once you start running headlines and sports scores, you are now giving the people who drive by your screens an actual reason to look up.
Providing them something useful to consume now gives your screens an edge, an advantage, that sells your platform to local clients and potential advertisers in a way that running an “Advertise with Us” ad can never do. It helps your clients feel like if THEY buy space on that screen, that people will see it – Because, they themselves have been looking at your screens, every day.
People that buy advertising on Tik Tok – Use Tik Tok
People that use your screens – Will buy advertising on them
Some examples :
Mashburn Outdoor
In partnership with Skydragon Designs and Redstone FCU, live college football game-times and scores for 32 different SEC & ACC teams, every game, the entire season running on 46 different billboard screens across 3 states (AL, TN and GA)
Durden Outdoor
This creative from a Durden Outdoor / Wiregrass Daily News partnership. YTD in 2026, 1.6 Million impressions of useful news content and headlines on 7 screens in Dothan, AL
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