Paid Media Manager Alavi Sumaia explores why OOH may be one of the most underutilised tools for improving social media performance, building brand salience and driving stronger connected campaign outcomes.
For years, marketers have talked about dual-screening as the relationship between TV and social media. But new research suggests there may be another combination that deserves just as much attention: Out-of-Home (OOH) and social media.
Far from operating as separate channels, OOH may actively improve social media performance by increasing attention, strengthening brand recall and driving action. At a time when social feeds are more crowded than ever, that could be a significant opportunity for advertisers.
The Point of Social, a cross-industry study from Posterscope, Bauer Media Outdoor, Ocean Outdoor, JCDecaux and Global, set out to understand how people use social media when they are out in the world versus at home. The findings challenge some long-held assumptions about social behaviour and offer valuable lessons for brands looking to maximise the effectiveness of their media investment.
The attention gap brands are overlooking
One of the study’s most important findings is that social media advertising performs differently during the day. While 9 in 10 out-of-home social sessions take place between 8 am and 6 pm, engagement with social media ads is 11% lower during the same period.
This creates what the researchers describe as an “attention gap”. People are still highly active on social media during the day, but they are using it differently. Rather than passively scrolling, they are commuting, shopping, exploring, sharing experiences and responding to the world around them.
For advertisers, this presents a challenge. But it also creates an opportunity. If attention is harder to capture in-feed during the day, brands need channels that can build recognition before a social ad appears. That is where OOH comes in.
Social media out of home is more active, not less valuable
The assumption is often that social media use outside the home is more distracted and therefore less valuable. The Point of Social suggests the opposite.
When people are out of home, social media behaviour becomes more active, more varied and more context-driven. People are more likely to use social platforms to explore products, validate purchase decisions, look for places to go, capture moments or interact with others.
This is particularly relevant in retail, leisure and travel environments. The study found that social media usage out of home was 75% more likely to lead to an in-store or online purchase, with 14% of out-of-home sessions leading to purchase compared with 8% at home.
That reframes the role of daytime social behaviour. It is not simply a weaker attention period. It is a different attention state.
Consumers may be less likely to engage with a standard social ad in the moment, but they may be much closer to a decision. Their physical environment is influencing what they search, share, consider and buy. For brands, this means OOH and social should not be planned as separate touchpoints. They should be planned as connected parts of the same journey.
Why OOH and social work well together
OOH and social media have a natural relationship because they connect the physical and digital worlds.
OOH creates visibility in real-world environments. Social extends the interaction, giving people a place to search, validate, engage and share. OOH builds salience. Social gives that salience somewhere to go.
The Point of Social found that OOH and social media have strong time-of-day alignment, particularly among younger audiences. This creates a priming opportunity, where OOH exposure can happen before or during key moments of social media usage.
This matters because social media is no longer just a channel for entertainment or passive scrolling. It is increasingly used for discovery, research, social proof and purchase consideration. When OOH reaches consumers in relevant physical environments, it can create the mental availability that helps a brand stand out when it later appears in-feed.
For Gen Z in particular, this connection is powerful. OOH offers a public, visible and non-skippable brand presence, while social provides the participatory layer. When the two are creatively aligned, they can help brands feel more present, more credible and more culturally relevant.
The proof: OOH can prime attention and improve outcomes
The strongest argument for integrating OOH and social is not just behavioural. It is measurable.
The Point of Social brings together several evidence points showing that OOH can amplify social media performance. Eye-tracking and dwell-time studies from JCDecaux and Ocean Outdoor found that when people were exposed to OOH before seeing social ads for the same brands, they spent 42% longer looking at those social ads on average.
Posterscope’s brand research database, based on 93 campaigns using both OOH and social, found that consumers exposed to both channels delivered a 7% average uplift in brand impact, including memorability, brand effects and action taken.
The IPA Databank analysis also found that when OOH was included in the media mix, social media generated stronger business effects, including +28% sales impact, +14% profit impact and +59% market share impact. Overall business effects were 34% higher when OOH was included versus campaigns without OOH.
This supports a key planning point: OOH should not only be viewed as an awareness channel. When used strategically, it can make other channels work harder by building memory, recognition and intent before a user is asked to act.
From billboard to feed: why creative consistency matters
For OOH to work as a social primer, creative consistency is essential.
This does not mean using the exact same asset across every channel. It means building a recognisable idea that can move across environments. OOH should create simple, bold and distinctive brand cues. Social should then pick up those same cues in a way that feels native to the platform.
Recent high-profile campaigns show how effective this can be. Adidas’ giant Trionda hot-air balloon activation ahead of the FIFA World Cup turned the official match ball into a piece of floating outdoor theatre. The reason it worked was simple: the format matched the product. A football and a hot-air balloon share the same basic shape, so the medium became part of the message.
Not every brand needs a large-scale stunt, and most B2B or specialist campaigns will not operate at that level of cultural scale. But the principle still applies. Distinctive OOH can create memory in the real world, while social can continue the story, answer questions and move audiences closer to action.
For B2B brands, this could mean using OOH around industry events, transport hubs, business districts or key account locations, then supporting that exposure with LinkedIn, paid social, search and retargeting. For education, professional services, recruitment, technology or membership organisations, the opportunity is not necessarily to create a viral moment. It is to create a recognisable moment that supports trust, recall and consideration across the wider journey.
What this means for advertisers
For brands running campaigns across paid social, programmatic, DOOH, search and content, the findings reinforce the importance of planning channels as a connected ecosystem rather than separate line items.
Rather than treating OOH as a standalone awareness channel, advertisers should consider how it can support social media performance throughout the customer journey.
OOH can be used to create distinctive brand cues that are carried through into paid social creative. It can be aligned with key real-world moments such as commuting, shopping, events, conferences, store visits or leisure activity. It can also provide a strong contextual signal for follow-up activity, with audiences exposed to OOH later reached through paid social, search, creator content or organic social.
For B2B advertisers, the same principle applies. OOH may not always be about mass reach. It can be used to build presence in high-value locations, support event attendance, increase brand credibility, or reinforce messaging among priority audiences. When paired with LinkedIn, paid social, search and account-based marketing, it can help build familiarity before a prospect enters a more measurable digital journey.
The key is to plan the role of each channel clearly. OOH should create visibility, salience and context. Social should extend the message, encourage interaction and support validation. Search should capture demand. Retargeting should continue the journey. Measurement should then look at the combined impact, rather than forcing every channel to prove its value in isolation.
For businesses investing in both brand-building and performance activity, the opportunity is not simply to add OOH into the media mix. It is to use OOH strategically to make other channels work harder.
The opportunity for connected planning
The biggest takeaway from The Point of Social is not just that OOH and social work well together. Marketers have suspected that for years.
The real insight is that consumers do not experience channels in isolation. They move between physical and digital environments throughout the day, and the brands that connect those experiences effectively are more likely to win attention, build recall and drive action.
For advertisers, that means thinking less about channels and more about connected journeys. Where is the audience when the need state appears? What are they doing? What will make the brand memorable in that moment? And how can social, search and other digital channels continue the conversation once attention has been created?
OOH can create the initial spark. Social can extend the interaction. Search can capture intent. Together, they can deliver stronger outcomes than any channel could achieve alone.
In a media environment where digital attention is increasingly fragmented, the smartest social strategies may start outside the feed.
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