Outdoor advertising is the only remaining mass medium. Television and radio have large total audiences but are extremely fragmented between the hundreds of available stations, programs, cable channels, and alternate delivery systems such as satellite.

The Media Funnel


Outdoor advertising is great at putting people into the media funnel. It is known and used for:

• Creating Awareness,
• Branding,
• Reminding,
• Creating momentum,
• Reaching influencers,
• Supporting other media, and
• Generating a response.

Buying Outdoor
Media buyers consider three major factors when purchasing advertising:

• Reach is the percent of the population that will see your message.
• Frequency is the average number of times people will see your message.
• CPM, or cost per thousand, is the cost to reach one thousand people.

To illustrate the effectiveness of a showing, the map below represents the relative origin of automobiles passing by a single poster location. Each billboard icon represents a poster location and each dot of corresponding color shows the home address of each car which passed by that structure. Approximately 200 cars were surveyed throughout an average work day to measure travel distribution shown.


Outdoor advertising can greatly increase an advertising campaign's reach and frequency because of it's low cost per thousand (CPM) compared to other media.

Outdoor (Top 50 Markets)	Men CPM	Women CPM	Adults CPM
8 Sheet Poster 350 Weekly GRPs	$1.77	$2.19	$0.98
30 Sheet Poster 350 Weekly GRPs	$2.61	$3.28	$1.45
Rotary Bulletin 70 Weekly GRPs	$6.72	$8.51	$3.76
Perm. Bulletin Weekly GRPs	$7.88	$9.91	$4.39
Radio	Â	Â	Â
:30 Network	$8.75	$7.75	Â
:30 Spot	$10.45	$9.65	Â
Magazines	Â	Â	Â
Newsweekly (4 color page)	$10.30	Â	Â
Newspapers	Â	Â	Â
Dailies (1/3 page black & white)	$22.05	$21.15	Â
TV	Â	Â	Â
:30 Prime Time Network	$22.55	$18.10	Â
:30 Prime Time Spot	$30.80	$24.31	Â

Source: OAAA CPM Comparison (2003).

Learn more about how outdoor works:

• Case Studies
• Glossary
• Resources