Digital Billboards and Brand Awareness — Reach & Recall Data

Awareness is the foundation of everything a brand does — and digital billboards are among the most efficient awareness-builders in media. Here’s what the reach and recall data actually shows.

The reach

Digital billboards reach a lot of people, repeatedly:

• DOOH campaigns reach over 70% of urban commuters weekly.
• Billboards reach over 90% of travelers each month.
• More than 600,000 digital displays are active globally, across cities, transit hubs, shopping centers, and venues.

The key isn’t just the numbers — it’s frequency. People pass the same screen daily, and repeated exposure builds the familiarity that drives awareness.

The recall

Reach is only half; being remembered is the point. And digital billboards deliver:

• Aided recall for DOOH runs around 82%, with 62% of consumers noticing DOOH ads in the past month.
• Digital formats boost recall by up to 60% compared with static formats.
• Digital billboards capture attention for 2.4 seconds versus 1.6 seconds for static — more attention, more memory.

The preference halo

Awareness isn’t neutral — people actually like digital billboards:

• 73% of consumers view DOOH advertising favorably, ahead of TV (50%), social (48%), online (37%), and print (31%).
• 58% of consumers say outdoor makes brands feel more trustworthy.

Perception matters: awareness built through a likeable, trusted medium is worth more than awareness built through an annoying one.

The action payoff

Brand awareness from digital billboards doesn’t stop at memory — it drives behavior:

• 76% of consumers take some form of action after seeing a DOOH ad — visiting a store, searching, or talking about the brand.
• Over half of consumers act on their phone after seeing a DOOH ad — searching, visiting the website, or opening a social app.

Awareness, trust, and action in one channel.

Why digital beats other channels at awareness

The reason digital billboards are so good at awareness is structural:

• They can’t be skipped. You can’t scroll past or block a building.
• They build memory differently. Physical advertising is processed spatially as well as visually, creating stronger memory traces.
• They’re positively received. Unlike ads people resent, DOOH is liked.

Building awareness that converts

Awareness is most valuable when it leads somewhere. The strongest digital billboard campaigns:

• Match the audience to the location — reach the right people repeatedly.
• Design for the glance — one idea, huge type, high contrast.
• Give a next step — a QR code, a handle, or a search prompt to capture the awareness as action.

Putting awareness to work

At Globalstars, we turn digital billboard awareness into results. We place brands on high-quality digital screens in the environments where your audience lives and moves — highway LEDs, city-center displays, and landmark spectaculars — and we design creative that gets remembered and prompts action.

If building awareness that people actually remember and trust is your goal, digital billboards are one of the most effective tools you can buy. [Let’s build your brand’s awareness with Globalstars](https://www.globalstarscn.com/).

Data sources: OAAA & Nielsen; Market Reports World; Solomon Partners.