Real out-of-home, however, still has the upper hand when it comes to virality, according to Dickieson.
“The downside of ‘fake’ is you can’t create distribution from it,” she said, noting that with billboards in real life, the brand can leverage the resulting user-generated content created when people see the billboard and tag the brand on social media. Brian Rappaport, founder and CEO of OOH buying and planning agency Quan Media Group, put it succinctly: “If you want to see yourself in out-of-home so badly, then spend on the channel, trust the channel.”
But other major OOH industry players suggested that even though OOH sellers are not benefiting from fake billboards, they could still benefit from the trend. Because once brands experiment and see positive results, they might become more curious about investing in the real thing. For example, a brand putting fake OOH on their social media account could legitimize the “creativity and impact” of the channel, Jodi Senese, CMO at Outfront Media, said in a recent interview. “Out-of-home makes extraordinarily powerful social content. And this is just another proof point of that,” she added.