Billboard advertising has gone through significant change in the last few years. Largely, this is due to the proliferation of digital displays. In 2023 alone, there were over 15,000 roadside digital out-of-home screens in the UK - a 7% increase from the previous year.
Digital billboards have not only changed the types of ads brands can display, they've changed targeting, purchasing, and attribution strategies. This shift has encouraged new types of businesses to purchase out-of-home (OOH) ads for the first time and opened up opportunities for more precise, data-driven campaigns.
Fundamentally, billboard advertising is undergoing the same digital transformation impacting almost every facet of our lives.
At Alight, we help brands keep up with these trends with tailored billboard campaigns. This article looks at what comes next. We'll explain how advertisers and media owners are adapting to the change, and how you can leverage these trends to ensure your billboard campaigns connect with audiences in 2025.
Trend 1: Geo-targeting and hyper-localisation
While both geo-targeting and hyper-localisation aim to deliver content that is relevant to a specific audience based on their location, they differ slightly. Geo-targeting identifies broader regional areas to display ads, while hyper-localisation refines this approach by tailoring content to resonate with specific local communities within those areas.
Both techniques are embedded in billboard campaign tactics, but are becoming more common and widely used. This is because they increase the ability of brands to create ads that resonate with local communities by tailoring campaigns to reflect cultural preferences, local events, weather, or traffic, ensuring content is relevant to people’s immediate surroundings. Here, advertisers have the opportunity to forge deeper connections with audiences by delivering messages that speak directly to the community where their ad appears.
How to leverage this trend
Geo-targeting and hyper-localised billboard advertising can be very effective for small businesses looking to engage directly with their local customer base. For example, local coffee shops can choose billboard locations that are within a certain radius to encourage walk-ins. Food brands could showcase ingredients tied to local culinary traditions, making their message more relevant to the tastes of a specific community.
To raise awareness that Uber is available in more areas, the company advertised across our digital billboards, offering new customers £10 off their first ride. The campaign was planned around postcodes that offer an Uber service with a creative showing the current live time it would take for an Uber to arrive.
Trend 2: Programmatic billboard campaigns
Like online ads, programmatic advertising involves buying billboard ad space using data and algorithms. Rather than buying ad space in certain locations, programmatic advertising allows you to target specific audiences by leveraging demographic data, ensuring ads are targeted to specific audiences.
Advertisers can use this data and external factors (like weather conditions) to deliver contextually relevant ads that resonate with local audiences. Ad content can also be adjusted to better connect with consumers while real-time analytics let advertisers refine their strategies.
How to leverage this trend
Programmatic options dramatically simplify ad buys for large businesses with national campaigns. They also provide smaller businesses with the option to purchase ads based on set budgets and optimise coverage based on hyper-specific targeting criteria. For example, a fashion brand could narrow digital billboard placement based on demographic targeting based on age, gender and income to maximise their exposure to likely customers.
Mad Mex (an Australian Mexican food chain) chose out-of-home locations within a 1km radius of flagship restaurants. Each display was customised according to monthly restaurant data, focusing on factors like taste or value—whichever attracted the most customers to that specific location.
Trend 3: Dynamic content for real-time relevance
Another trend that is increasing in popularity is the use of dynamic content. This refers to using multiple creatives, tailored to specific circumstances, displayed using digital billboards.
Although dynamic content can be deployed with manual scheduling, it works well in conjunction with programmatic and geo-targeted or hyper-localised campaigns. This maximises your ability to display messages that are highly relevant and timely, adjusting automatically to better engage with the desired target audience.
Dynamic content optimisation (DCO) is an important part of programmatic digital-out-of-home advertising. In fact, 95% of marketers see value in integrating dynamic content within programmatic campaigns.
How to leverage this trend
While this trend is mostly used by big national advertising campaigns, it can also be highly effective for smaller businesses that need to stretch a limited budget as effectively as possible. For example, local restaurants can adjust digital content to show breakfast specials in the morning and dinner promos after sunset. Brands can also change their content according to weather patterns by showing cold drinks when it’s hot and warm drinks when the temperatures drop below a certain degree.
New Balance transformed Dutch athlete Femke Bol's Budapest championship win into a nationwide celebration. Across the Netherlands, digital screens initially displayed encouragement for her before the race and then seamlessly updated to celebrate her victory.
Trend 4: Enhanced connectivity
In 2025, digital billboards are set to offer onlookers a whole new level of connectivity. Enter 5G rollouts, embedded IoT devices, facial recognition, and biometrics data. New connectivity features that allow for integration with smart city tech (such as public transportation systems), and applying AI tools to analyse data will provide new developments when it comes to audience targeting and data analysis.
All of this allows for more creative and targeted digital billboard campaigns. Features like IoT devices and facial recognition can identify audience profiles, such as age and gender - even analysing audience expressions and levels of engagement. These same digital billboards are increasingly capable of streaming high-definition videos, interactive displays, or even live broadcasts on billboards.
How to leverage this trend
Enhanced connectivity creates opportunities for improved targeting of billboard campaigns, and more engaging creatives. For example, consider augmented reality (AR) features to trigger special effects when onlookers walk past. By using facial recognition, clothing brands can trigger personalised ads tailored to the onlooker’s demographic, showing specific apparel to audiences based on their age or gender.
Burger King used facial recognition technology to scan customers' faces in their "Hangover Whopper" promotion. The system detected the "level" of a person's hangover and provided them with a corresponding discount on their order.
Trend 5: Sustainability and eco-friendly infrastructure
As corporate social responsibility becomes more of a necessity than a nice-to-have, marketers are facing increasing pressure to opt for eco-friendly advertising solutions. With the whole world going green, billboards that feature energy-efficient lighting, recyclable materials, and offer minimal environmental impact are becoming all the more popular.
This growing trend enables out-of-home advertisers to attract environmentally conscious consumers and businesses by integrating sustainable practices into their billboard infrastructure and overall greener marketing efforts.
Particularly with the growth of digital displays and other power-hungry technology, it’s important that media owners consider their responsibility and ability to enable sustainable billboard campaigns. At Alight, our network is 100% powered by renewable energy.
How to leverage this trend
When thinking of ways to capitalise on this trend, creativity and innovation are key. Apart from showcasing your brand’s eco-friendly practices or products, billboard displays can incorporate dynamic elements like living roof shelters, wind and solar energy powered screens, or recycling bins that help give back to the environment.
To help raise awareness of their new all-electric cars, Volkswagen created a living billboard on Prince Street in Manchester. Made entirely from different types of moss, the billboard uses power generated by wind and sun to capture carbon dioxide.
Further reading: New report shows out-of-home as the greenest advertising channel
Trend 6: Increased accessibility and adoption of out-of-home
All of these trends, specifically digital billboards and more targeted ways to purchase ad space (e.g. programmatic, or local campaigns) have made billboard advertising more accessible than ever. The main outcome of this has been new businesses purchasing billboard ad space for the first time.
During 2023, out-of-home was the only legacy ad medium to record growth in ad spend, with particular increases in digital site spend. Out-of-home spend grew by 9.7% in 2023, while spend on digital sites expanded by 12.2%. This growth has been driven by a mix of more small businesses buying billboards, and larger brands expanding their out-of-home campaigns. We expect to see continued expansion in the types of businesses buying billboards, and the nature and location of billboard campaigns.
How to leverage this trend
Out-of-home professionals can help businesses purchase billboards for the first time by adopting several strategies that boost brand awareness and increase ROI. Advertisers can work with media owners to use geo-targeting data to help identify the most ideal locations for their ads to reach their target audience more cost effectively. Plus, they can collaborate to create unique dynamic content and programmatic campaigns that help local businesses resonate with their community.
Critically, it’s important that media owner billboard locations match changes in demand. For example, small businesses will be more interested in local billboard sites. Coverage of previously underserved areas presents a significant opportunity to capitalise on this growing demand.
Further reading: Advertising your small business locally | 6 tips to make an impact
What do billboard advertising trends mean for businesses?
As we approach 2025, the changing out-of-home landscape brings with it a host of new opportunities for both big and small businesses. Understanding how to leverage these six billboard advertising trends will not only help brands expand their footprint but also connect with audiences in new and even better ways.
It’s equally important that media owners and specialist OOH agencies are prepared to meet the demand for new, innovative billboard campaigns. That means the ability to guide ad buyers through the process to deliver effective results. Particularly with new businesses purchasing billboards for the first time, expert support has never been more important.
It’s also critical to think about billboard locations and network reach. Small businesses, particularly, will be interested in billboards in their local area. Outdoor media owners need to ensure that their network coverage extends beyond city centres and high-traffic areas.
At Alight, we are a leading UK out-of-home media owner with our advertising network spanning over 190 towns across the country. Working hard to stay on the cutting edge of evolving industry trends, we bring a personal touch to the power of out-of-home advertising.
Ready to connect with your community or expand your network? To find out how the Alight team can implement these trends to ensure billboards connect with the right audience, contact us today.