Out-of-Home marketing amplifies your social-first approach
With the marketing landscape shifting to a social-first approach and the impacts of a global pandemic, many questions have been raised as to whether Out-of-Home (OOH) marketing still has the same impact it had 10 years ago.
While there will always be a demand for OOH, in popular locations such as Time Square and Piccadilly Circus, are brands, marketers and advertisers overlooking OOH as they shift attention away from traditional static billboards and adopt a social-first approach to target audiences?
As a social-first global marketing agency, at our core we develop creative and social strategies for brands across the social and digital landscape. However, we still understand the value of OOH marketing and with the right combination of data and creativity there is certainly scope to build OOH into a larger strategy which transcends across multiple touch points.
Out-of-Home marketing amplifies your digital presence
With restrictions being lifted, people are increasingly spending more time out of their home whether it is a commute to work, shopping or socialising. With people living busy lives and being constantly on the move it is becoming increasingly difficult for brands to cut through the noise on social media and engage with their audience. This has led brands who are native to social, to start incorporating OOH campaigns to amplify social messaging and drive brand awareness, engagement and reach.
With the continuous innovations of technology and the increased ownership of smart devices, consumers can act instantly to advertising making OOH more relevant and impactful than it has ever been through digital out of home and reactive marketing.
Combining OOH marketing to amplify a social campaign allows a brand to reach new people and demands its own attention, becoming a media which leads to more mobile searches, more impressions and engagement on social media and one of the biggest drivers of word of mouth when done right.
It allows you to connect with people by placing unmissable messages directly in their path. Data suggests you are able to reach a wider range of demographics from GenZ and Millennials to GenX in densely populated areas. This is due to a large proportion of active mobile users, remaining connected through their smart devices and are often light TV viewers who are alert to their surroundings, constantly absorbing information and open to visual stimuli.
We spoke to Dom Allison senior strategist at Kairos Media for this thoughts;
“In the digital heavy world, OOH might be seen as an out-dated and archaic tool, however if used correctly it can deliver a unique additional strategic element to campaigns. At Kairos, when we consider the impact of OOH or experiential activations we always evaluate how this advertising medium can contribute to the wider digital experience for a consumer, rather than simply viewing it as a standalone asset.
For example, when activating the influencer component of the 'Bring Your Anger' campaign for Rovio, influencer and social activity aligned to an experiential activation in Times Square.
Broadcasting live onto one of the most iconic billboards in the world creating a seamless link between the physical activation present in Times Square, the influencer & social content being created on the ground and the ability of OOH to reach large quantities of consumers and drive footfall to our experiential activation. “
Key takeaway
OOH certainly has its place within when it comes to amplifying online digital campaigns, with consumer data suggesting 48% of consumers are more likely to interact with a digital ad after being exposed to an OOH ad first.
What I find interesting is we are seeing an increasing number of brands and influencers who are traditionally native to social media platforms, incorporating OOH activations as a supporting phase within a larger scale campaign to drive awareness and engagement across social media.
We’ve seen the likes of UK YouTube Group, The Sidemen, recently incorporating OOH advertising on famous London buses to promote their collaboration with children's book characters Mr Men. While in recent weeks mobile-dating app, Thursday, has gone viral after a string of OOH marketing campaigns in locations such as Liverpool Street and the London underground.
The one that stands out the most is the recently announced partnership between luxury fashion brand Balenciaga and online video game Fortnite, creating a real-world immersive 3D billboard experience across London, New York, Tokyo and Seoul, amplifying the announcement of their partnership across social media. The introduction of the virtual characters, who are playable characters within the Fortnite game, into the physical world, creates a new touch point to reach their audience in a unique and entertaining way, which is also easily shareable.
Tracking OOH marketing campaigns
There are still common assumptions that OOH marketing can’t be measured as a performance channel and are limited to basic awareness driven metrics, similar to social metrics such as impressions and reach aligned to a specific demographic.
However this couldn’t be further from the truth. OOH marketing can provide a unique, immersive and engaging brand experience through visual creatives and ads which are often shared through social media and therefore can be tracked.
By inlaying a digital trail as a call to action within your digital out of home campaign allows you to simply track performance metrics of OOH advertising. Through incorporating QR codes that directly drive traffic to a brands website and social media accounts and by analysing data we can track the update on follower growth and engagement from users who have been directed to the channel through OOH advertisement, with the use of predetermined hashtags.
However it is important to note this approach only works with users who have correctly used the hashtag and some subsets can be missed out due to human error such as spelling mistakes. In addition, through creating promo codes, this allows a brand to track the conversion rate and ROI directly associated with OOH marketing.
In addition to inlaying digital trails, through the latest innovations of DOOH, marketeers are now able to track eye movement on digital billboards which tracks when the billboard is being looked at and more importantly, registers people's visual response (or lack thereof) to digital signage allowing you to capture physical engagement to and ad whether that be scanning a QR code, taking a photo or searching for the brands social handles.
Key Takeaway
As a social-first marketing agency we acknowledge online digital advertising can sometimes have limitations as a stand alone. However, through our data and insights study we know GenZ have an attention span of around 8 seconds and millennials 12 seconds with both spending on average around 3 hours per day on social media. With the rise in ad blockers combined with the sheer amount of information that consumers are faced with online, there is a limited window to grab consumers attention.
Many brands just aren’t able to cut through the noise on social media. This is why we have invested heavily in our data and insights, strategy and content teams and paid media teams to ensure we are in the best place to reach our target audiences by utilising an array of marketing tools such as experiential, OOH and Influencers to amplify our social campaigns.