FAQ’s Bus Shelter Advertising

Bus shelter advertising is a straightforward form of outdoor marketing, where advertisers pay to place promotional and marketing content on bus stops and stations nationwide, with a view to targeting commuters as they go about their daily business.
Bus shelters and other advertising spaces that are located in high-traffic areas, particularly in central locations, tend to be more expensive.
Bus shelter advertising along heavily commuted roadways is able to draw the attention of city residents because of its proximity to bus stops, which facilitates communication between brands and their ideal audience.

While bus shelter advertising is usually segregated into two categories, classic and digital, we’ll explore the differences between the two while asking what separates one from the other.
Classic 6 and 16-Sheet Posters
Classic or traditional bus shelter ads commonly use paper advertisements, as do differently sized billboards. For example, compact 6-sheet ads are often used at individual bus shelters and stations, with these ads measuring 1800mm x 1200mm (or 1.8m x 1.2m). A study from 2014 found that this poster size doubles brand recall while simultaneously boosting purchase intent by as much as 47%. So it can be a highly effective way to deliver your message to a targeted audience.
Similarly, you may see 16-sheet bus shelter and train station ads in larger bus shelters and train stations. These types of ads are most likely to be placed in high-traffic locations in major city centers such as Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
Thousands of classic ad panels are used across the length and breadth of the UAE. You’ll find that booking these ads for a booking period of two weeks or longer typically makes them more cost effective than booking them for shorter periods.
Digital Bus Shelter Ads
Although digital bus shelter ads are available in the UAE, there are far fewer of them than traditional bus shelter ads. As the underlying technology continues to grow and as the popularity of digital media rises, this imbalance will likely correct itself over time.
As a whole, digital out-of-home (DOOH) advertising is more expensive than traditional marketing channels.
These displays are also referred to as “interactive” ads, since they are equipped with contemporary technologies that allow customers and brands to interact with one another.
For example, digital posters may feature motion detection, which can play a sound or animation when consumers approach the poster.
Companies can also use touch screen and facial recognition technologies for digital advertising, which allows for various types of real-time interaction at times when customers are more likely to engage with brands.
One of the most prominent factors influencing the cost of digital bus shelters and DOOH advertising in general is the technology used. In theory, you can make up for this added expense by increasing engagement levels, which should result in a higher return on your total marketing spend.

We touched on the benefits of using 6-sheet posters as part of your marketing campaign earlier, but this is just one advantage among many. The following information outlines other advantages available to brands when they engage in bus shelter advertising. We’ll also explore why these benefits are important to advertisers.
You Can Reach a Large Number of People
Bus shelter ads reach almost all of the UAE population each week, making this type of outdoor advertising one of the most effective ways to reach consumers.
In Dubai alone, there are more than six million bus commuters every day, highlighting a huge customer base for businesses to communicate with.
The ability to reach a high volume of customers is meaningless unless you can engage them effectively. This is one reason why digital displays, led by technology, have become so popular in recent years.
Although all bus shelter ads can work by targeting key demographics at specific times of the day, product and service promotions are most effective when designed to appeal to commuters.
For instance, the daily commute of people who travel by public transport to and from work in large city centers such as Dubai is likely to be made up primarily of young professionals. The regularity of this commute creates a detailed insight into the core target market for any given location.
A local fast-food outlet could create content geared toward commuters as they make their way home from work, promoting the restaurant’s menu.
The strategy behind this approach is that customers are more likely to engage with a brand when they’re in a buying mood. This can lead to increased sales and conversion rates over time, all through a relatively simple marketing premise.
Bus shelter ads, which are controlled remotely by a content management system and can display changeable messages at different times of day, may have even more impact than digital ads in this instance.

You Can Reach Out to Customers in Your Target Geographic Area
Bus shelter ads are especially effective for small and medium-sized businesses because SMEs tend to serve a local community before scaling up. Bus shelter ads provide high levels of exposure in most regions of the UAE, enabling businesses to achieve large numbers of targeted and tangible leads over the course of a campaign. This leads to increased sales conversion rates, ensuring that you achieve the best possible return on your total marketing spend.
The reach also provides new businesses with an immense opportunity to build brand awareness within the local area, which can provide a solid foundation for future campaigns that may be focused on a particular product, service or promotion.
In order to fully capitalize on this opportunity, you may also want to consider investing in moving or mobile billboards. These are used for advertising on the sides of buses or other vehicles. This allows for your marketing efforts to be mobilized and maximized so that you can reach a specific message to a wide audience without compromising on key demographics.
You Can Create Visually Appealing and Eye-Catching Ads
Early in this article, we discussed how digital bus shelter ads are capable of using motion sensors and similar technologies to create effective and truly creative ads. This lends itself to the creation of ads that are memorable and eye-catching, while also stimulating multiple senses simultaneously (as noted by one study which found that sensory marketing techniques increased sales volumes by 10%). Given these benefits, it makes sense for businesses to consider investing in digital bus shelter advertising opportunities.
Bus shelter ads allow you to communicate with consumers during their daily commute, when they are looking for entertainment. Bus shelter ads are a less intrusive medium than other forms of advertising, such as radio or television.
Combining striking visuals with an engaging message can help create a more memorable ad campaign.

Bus shelter ads and classic billboards are two types of outdoor advertising, both belonging to the same family of out-of-home media. Bus shelter posters are the smaller end of the spectrum, with 6 and 16-sheet posters having compact displays that demand concise text and the careful selection of images.
Classic billboard ads are larger in size, with 48 and 96-sheet billboards providing more marketing space for larger, more striking displays.
Larger, elevated billboards offer more space for your messaging, imagery and contact details. The nature of the larger format leaves a significant impact.
Larger billboards may be used as part of an integrated campaign or separately depending on your budget and target audiences.

Ultimately, bus shelter ads are a compact, affordable marketing option that is ideal for small businesses that want to build awareness amongst a large local audience.
Bus shelters are also great for brands that want to target commuters and young professionals in particularly busy central locations; these typically see a large number of people use public transport on a daily basis.
However, an advertiser will have to make sure the audience they are targeting uses buses regularly since some demographics are less likely to use buses than others. With the number of buses in rural communities having been reduced slightly in recent years, larger, roadside billboards may offer more value in many locations.
An advertiser will need to understand their target market in detail prior to investing in bus shelter advertising while also ensuring public transport usage is prominent in specific areas.