Ambient media is the name given to a new breed of out-of-home products and services determined by some as Non-Traditional or Alternative Media. Because these are among the freshest ideas and concepts they are innovative and rapidly expanding the scope of out of home advertising mediums. Ambient ads are effective means at pushing a brand message in front of consumers and can develop even better top of mind recall within target audiences. This provides the ability to advertisers to maintain brand awareness created by other advertising efforts. Ambient media can produce mass attention in centralized locations, or directly interact with consumers during normal every day activities. You may have seen some of these forms or media and not even know that they fall into Ambient Media or Outdoor Advertising for that matter. Ambient media imposes an impression on consumers when they perhaps are not ready to receive, which means they are not prepared to ignore ads either.

Ambient advertising can be engaged in many ways, formats, and locations. Ambient media can be the coffee cup with your favorite cup of Joe, with a heat activated ad from Hyundai (see BriteVision) on the coffee cup sleeve. When you pick up your clothing from the local cleaners, you’re not even surprised to see the garment bag protecting your clothes with a colorful ad for Desperate House Wives or the Weather Channel, even the hanger has an ad on it. You may not even think that this is out of the ordinary to be classified as Non-Traditional advertising. Engaging individuals with ambient media is to target your consumer’s subtlety over and over again in oddly familiar territory, and can be highly effective brand penetration. What marketers are doing is bringing the message to you, since perhaps you are among the millions with busy active lives. Ambient media provide advertisers the ability to capture someone conscious and subconscious at the same time. For instance, your weekly yoga workout could be performed on a yoga mat with an ad from Wheat Thins because you’re their target audience, and the message is right fit.

Like traditional mediums the effectiveness of the medium can rely upon the creativity of the ad placement. It has been said, “That a bad creative ad printed multiple times is quite simply, a bad ad printed multiple times”- Robert Fleege. Ads placed on parking tickets at regional or local hospitals feature health care companies and insurance companies. A movie release use valet tickets to target clubs and restaurants where it has been determined demographically that the correct audience is in attendance. Receipt advertising has been in the hands of most and usually offers future discounts on purchase, and can be distributed by taxi cabs, ticket booths on highways (to those without state EZ Pass or Sun Pass) to the unassuming viewer. These advertisements distributed directly to the hand a target audience, allow advertisers to ‘touch’ potential consumers. Other examples include advertisements on shopping carts, scrolling video displays in restrooms and bars, street teams, guerilla marketing tactics, sidewalk ads, bag advertisements, coffee cups, trash receptacles, and segways, just to name a few.

Non-Traditional Ambient Media
By definition: Ambient advertising utilizes forms of demographic targeting which permeate consumer consciousness through non-intrusive, continuous, periphery display of advertiser’s information. The effective use of products and services in this category of outdoor media provides advertisers the ability to systematically stimulate consumer attention across several media platforms and outlets. Enhancing user awareness with the practice of a well placed brand logos or recognizable brand colors designs or architecture (reference-Target Store Ads) aid in the delivery of the message. New led or digital video ads in malls or stores, floor graphics ad displays, light projectors or holographic ads (projection media) can also fall into this category, as well as, the Digital Media category.

Great Outdoor Network.com is an advertising platform for OOH media vendors to showcase different products and services online to a multitude advertising executives and media buying professionals. This association with the media vendors provides a unique insight into the inner working and effective uses of the outdoor advertising mediums. We share this information as a comprehensive resource tool. The ability for anyone with a general or specific interest in our vertical of the advertising industry can freely do so. Our media network offers a database of ambient media vendors and traditional mediums to provide quick and easy access to useful information for implementation.

As a constantly evolving method of advertising, ambient media advertising offers numerous opportunities to business advertisers and brand managers to communicate their message effectively over and over. Great Outdoor Network.com provides web site end users a clean user friendly platform to pass the insight, knowledge, and effective resources which lead advertisers to an educated, informed choice when developing a media marketing plan.