The easiest way to boost the impact of an ad campaign may be to add out-of-home advertising to the mix, according to a new study.

Want to boost sales? How about double or even triple them? A new analysis of 600 case studies of marketing campaigns, including 43 in the United States, by British media research firm BrandScience has a suggestion: add out-of-home advertising to the media mix.

The reason, it turns out, is pretty straightforward. People spend many of their waking hours away from home, and if influencing them when they are making their final purchasing decisions is an important goal, it only makes sense to move the point-of-presence of an ad or marketing message closer to point-of-presence of their wallets.

Sounds good in theory, but what about real dollars and cents? Turns out the research firm shed some light on the economic impact of out-of-home advertising as well. For each dollar spent on out-of-home advertising, an average of $2.80 is received in product sales, according to the research.

Keep in mind the BrandScience research was sponsored by the Outdoor Advertising Association of America. Still, the findings make sense - particularly to someone like me who has written copiously on the power of reaching people at the point of sale with digital signage messaging as they are making their final purchasing decisions.

Not only can out-of-home advertising reach shoppers at or very near the point of sale, but this form of advertising also can reinforce ad messages delivered via TV and other media, effectively extending the duration the ad campaign is remembered by the public. The research found that when a high proportion of out-of-home media is used as part of media mix, the effectiveness of an ad campaign increases.

According to the study, sales tripled when spending on out-of-home ads moved from a low amount to a medium amount. Additionally, the study found sales more than doubled when a high amount was spent on out-of-home ads.

The research also offered some advice about how to allocate ad budgets to maximize return on investment. The best ROI is achieved when overall ad spending is low and the proportion of out-of-home media used in the mix is high.

Rather than get caught up in the minutia of the research, it may be wiser to consider the bigger picture. That is even as evidence mounts that out-of-home advertising is an important part of an ad mix, critical pieces of the puzzle professional ad buyers need to evaluate digital signage advertising networks and a variety of audience metrics measuring technologies are falling into place.

As I've previously written, technology is helping to quantify digital signage audiences and even qualify them in terms that make sense to ad agencies that are accustomed to reading reliable circulation statements and examining Nielsen ratings to make logical decisions about ad placements for their clients.

Taken together with the latest research from BrandScience, these tools help to make clearer for the professional ad community just how important it is to add out-of-home media, like digital signage, to the media mix.

With research, such as the study from BrandScience, that quantifies the exact dollar return for every dollar spent on out-of-home, this medium is impossible to ignore for agencies seeking the best advertising solutions for their clients.

While it's important to prepare for contingencies before an emergency situation arises, it's just as important to use a digital signage network that is flexible enough to target messaging and provide for remote access and control.

The specifics of emergency situations can vary dramatically, but a handful of common elements make it possible for appropriately configured digital signage networks to communicate information that potentially can save lives regardless of the precise nature of the contingency.

Whether it's severe weather, fire, or the intrusion of an authorized individual on premise, emergency situations share a few basic elements from a communications point of view that can be planned for and executed quickly when required.

To prepare, answer a few simple questions: Is the emergency confined to a local area served by the network or is it larger in scope? How can a true warning be distinguished from a drill? What action is required on the part of those threatened? By answering these questions before an emergency arrives and consulting with stakeholders in the safety of the enterprise, it is possible to prepare a series of appropriate emergency messages for most contingencies.

But beyond preparing content, there are two important demands that must be satisfied by a digital signage network to make it a valuable asset in responding to an emergency. First, the network must offer the flexibility needed to respond and adapt to an emergency. Consider a college campus with dozens of buildings and hundreds of signs. Responding to a fire in the Student Union with appropriate warning messages and evacuation maps is critically important for students, faculty and employees at the union, but not for those elsewhere on campus. In fact, alerting those in other buildings on campus to the fire at the Student Union could actually hinder firefighters and other first responders if curious students elsewhere were alerted to the situation and walked to the union to get a firsthand look.

Second, the digital signage network must be flexible enough to allow for off-site control in the event of an emergency. Authorized personnel using a secure password should be able to take control of the digital signage network from a secure, remote location via the Internet in the event that the network operations center is threatened by or involved in the emergency contingency.

Besides flexibility and control, other important elements of a digital signage network in an emergency include the ability to rapidly access appropriate pre-built content for various contingencies; the ability to customize or create on the fly emergency content from the network operations center to respond to unexpected contingencies; and easy access to the National Weather Service, cable or satellite television and other sources of emergency information that can be relayed across the digital signage network if appropriate.

To be certain, the adrenaline flows in emergency situations. But preparing prior to an event and having access to a properly enabled digital signage network for quick dissemination of appropriate warning messages should add an element of reassurance that calms the nerves and helps the network manager to respond in a level headed fashion to any contingency.