Seven essential tips for an effective OOH campaign

In the digital age, the growth of traditional advertising, print, tv, radio—has  stagnated with one notable exception. Out of home advertising (OOH), a catch-all term for billboards, transit wraps and point of sale signage is actually going gangbusters. According to the research firm, Magna Global, OOH spending grew 4.6% in 2018, a record high.  But, of course, not every billboard campaign will yield record results for the brand. So how do you make sure your OOH money is spent wisely? Of course, a well thought out, efficient outdoor buy is crucial. But great placement with a boring, wordy, generic message is worthless. Consider these seven essential tips for an effective OOH campaign.

#1 — Strategy First

Start with honest, human insights. An outdoor campaign for the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, for example, targeted visitors to the city. The assumption is that people use social media to plan their trips, research their destination and ask for recommendations. But research found that 85 percent of vacation itinerary decisions are actually made at the destination. This one statistic was the driving force behind the See Them Both campaign.  Rather than compete with some of the more iconic tourist destinations, the museum chose to capitalize on their fame by promoting the museum alongside, Alcatraz, Fisherman’s Wharf, the Golden Gate Bridge and other bucket list faves. Following a three month campaign, museum traffic increased 48 percent while the average ticket sale increased 14 percent. So not just more people visiting the museum, more people spending more money. 

# 2 — Put Google to Work

Don’t try to explain everything while someone is driving 60 miles an hour. Compel people to do their own research. Ninety percent of Americans are proficient with the same research tool that got you to this blog post. If they drive pass something intriguing on their commute, they’ll Google it.  This approach proved successful for Comedy Central, which in 2018 ran an OOH campaign with messaging that read: #CancelSouthPark. Fans rushed to the internet for confirmation only to discover that it was the creators themselves pushing for the show demise, capitalizing on past viral Twitter campaigns which successfully saved the tv shows, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and Lucifer both slated for the chopping block. 

#3 — Invest in Multiple Executions

OOH is meant to build brand awareness. And the best way to do that is to stick with one unifying message and then create varied executions that people won’t get sick of. According to the 23 Below Media Group, Multiple OOH executions improve lasting impact by 14 percent thus extending the overall life of the advertising campaign. This was the strategy used to help launch Roku back when awareness of streaming was only at 7 percent. Despite being a superior product, they were having trouble stealing market share from brand leader Apple TV.  Before we explained why our small, black box was better than the other small black box, we had to equate Roku with streaming so that when people did decide to jump into the streaming market, Roku would be top of mind. We blanketed communities with out-of-home messaging around the holidays that was funny and simple, but also varied. So it remained entertaining like the TV shows they love.  By the time the campaign was over, we had established brand awareness on-par with Apple TV and increased Roku sales by 30 percent.

#4 — Give Them Something to Talk About

People hate boring advertising. They love things that are funny, compelling or worth talking about. And, of course, outdoor advertising needn’t be static. Just recently, for example, Kelly Services needed a digital video execution for the Times Square facing side of New York City’s landmark NASDAQ building. It’s a fabulous location in terms of eyeballs. But because there are 26 windows smattered throughout billboard it’s a design nightmare. Most companies ignore the windows, which then breaks up the type and makes the images look pretty crappy.  But Kelly, a temporary staffing agency, incorporated the windows into their creative concept seizing on the adage: “Every time a door closes, a window opens.” In this way, the windows went from distraction to focal point and dovetailed with their overall brand message that no job is permanent. And because we knew the installation would turn heads, we even hired a production team to record people’s reactions when it went live in Time Square, which prolonged the life of the campaign by allowing it to proliferate on social media.

# 5 — Keep it Simple

Less is more.  We promise. Per research uncovered by  23 Below Media Group, OOH ads are 23 percent more likely to get noticed when they have fewer design elements. The billboard’s purpose is to build brand awareness. In the case of Metro Mile, for example, we cut right to the chase: Insurance for People Who Don’t Drive Much.”  The message, coupled with a playful illustration, is a way to pique curiosity, not close a deal.

# — 6 Pay Attention to Placement

If a board or location is super cheap, there’s a reason. Is it behind a tree? In a bad part of town? Blocked by construction? Also essential: Pay attention to what’s being advertised on adjacent OOH real estate as it can negatively impact your brand.  A billboard purchased by Burger King in Louisiana went viral, but for all the wrong reasons. The billboard was created to promote the fast-food giant’s meal deal—two sausage and cheese breakfast sandwiches for three dollars. Nothing provocative about it.  However, it was placed alongside a billboard purchased by the American Heart Association (AHA) which read: One in three people will die from heart disease. No further explanation is necessary.

# 7 — Quit asking your agency to make the logo bigger

The logo should be visible, but not so visible it’s the first thing people see. No one gives a crap about your logo without a compelling idea. Give them a reason to WANT to know who is doing the message. If all you had to do was make the logo bigger, we would have done that years ago for all our clients and retired by now. Apple’s “Shot on iPhone campaign” embodies this approach. The company used crowdsourced photos shot with the iPhone to demonstrate the power of the product’s camera. The Apple logo is dropped quietly and tastefully into the lower left hand corner of each billboard.

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The Small Agency Blog is produced by Division of Labor; a top San Francisco ad agency and digital marketing firm that’s been named Small Agency of the Year twice by Ad Age. The award-winning creative shop services clients on a retainer or project basis. They also offers brand consulting services and hourly engagements for startups and smaller brands. Click here for a free consultation.

Five Things Every Start-Up Marketing Campaign Must Do (But Often Don't)

Marketing blog posts usually talk about the importance of data, analytics, measurement and all the logical, basics that young MBAs focus on for a successful marketing campaign. But targeting, tracking, optimizing and measuring aren’t the differentiators. They’re the basic nuts and bolts of a marketing campaign that everyone should be doing. What most people, amazingly, ignore is the message.

What are you gonna do to make people pay attention? Why should anyone give a crap? How are you gonna make people have an emotional connection to your brand or product? If your campaign doesn’t have a strong point of view that makes people feel something, you’ll have to spend exponentially more money forcing a bland message down people’s throats. So use the data and analytics and optimize the hell out of your campaign. But make sure you do something that can’t be ignored. A few thoughts on how to go about that.

1. If You’re Not Offending Someone, You’re Boring Everyone

Muslims, Jews, Catholics, African Americans, Asians, Christians, Latinos, white people, homosexuals, heterosexuals, PETA, the elderly, conservatives, the NRA, the NAACP, smelly hippies, trailer-trash, the Amish, private militias, people with chronic foot odor—anyone on this list might be offended if they’re mentioned in an ad. Yet someone left off this list may be offended if they were omitted. Put a kid in a wheelchair in your ad and you’re pandering. Don’t show a kid in a wheelchair and you’re ignoring the handicapped. Use the word handicapped and you’re an insensitive boob. Use the term challenged and you’re insulting. That’s the way it is. If you have a point of view, and you get a lot of attention, you’re gonna offend someone.

We once did a radio commercial for a power company in Chicago about proper insulation to stay warm. And we made some joke about how heavy wool sweaters are itchy. Seemed innocuous enough. Until our client received a terse letter from the Wool Council suggesting our ad was misleading and offensive as only poor quality wool is itchy. They asked that we stop running it and blah blah blah. But if our radio commercial motivated a wool lobbyist to write a letter, I’ll tally that as a win for my client. It’s proof that our message is getting noticed. So don’t be so bland that no one even notices you. Also, when the wool lobbyist complains, post their comments proudly on your social media feed.

2.  Knock Off a Few Liquor Stores While Plotting the Perfect Diamond Heist

Like any smart entrepreneur knows, great is the enemy of good. Because if you wait for things to be perfect, you’ve waited too long. Same goes with marketing. Quit pondering and testing your way toward never actually doing anything. Who cares if you’re gonna change your brand colors in six months. Do something! Rather, than spending months and months on focus groups “testing” ideas, get things out into the ethos, monitor success, and tweak as necessary. Instead, combine research and instinct to choose a campaign most likely to resonate with your audience and roll the campaign out in a test market. Then use the feedback to plan next steps, knowing that the data you’ve gleaned is far more valuable than anything you’d extrapolate from a focus group.

3. Drop a Bomb in the Room and Then Throw in a Bunch of Leaflets

This is our somewhat politically incorrect philosophy: Drop a bomb, meaning do something big that gets a shit-ton of attention (yes, that’s a technical term) and then follow up with rational product messages after people are curious. Brands need both emotional and rational messages.

The job of your advertising is not just to explain how your product works. Saying a lot of things that matter to you will not make those things matter to others. Because no one makes rational purchase decisions. We all make emotional decisions and justify them with rational thinking.

Think of the two most important purchase decisions you’ve ever made: your house and your car. The average person looks at the house they buy 1.5 times and spends less than an hour there. There’s nothing rational about that. You fall in love with the view or the pizza oven and then you rationalize the purchase by saying, it’s in a good school district or the kids’ rooms are close to ours, or whatever.

Same with your car. If you were being rational when buying a car, you’d buy the most economical, safest vehicle to transport you from point A to point B. But you’ve convinced yourself that a BMW handles better and performs better. Even though if we took the badge off the front, you couldn’t tell the difference between a loaded Hyundai, Ford Fusion or a BMW. (And please don’t write me letters BMW fans. I know you could tell by the tight suspension and that BMW engine growl. Whatever.)

The point is, we fall in love with what the brand stands for and then we rationalize all the reasons it’s a “better” car for us. Same with every purchase we make. Emotions like love, envy, pride, and vanity are the driving forces of our existence. It’s what makes us human. So when it comes to vetting the perfect ad campaign, make sure people will fall in love with it or shed a tear or bust a gut laughing or say, “I totally do that!” Or, just make sure they want to wear your logo on a T-Shirt. Because, well,  there is nothing rational about wearing a logo on a T-Shirt, and yet it’s probably the most popular piece of clothing in the world today.

4. Quit Worrying So Much About Insulting the Customer

I hear this all the time from marketing people as if there’s a subsection of executives who actually want to insult their customers. Marketing people who overthink customer reactions operate from a position of fear. They think that if a person in their commercial or video is the butt of a joke or looks foolish, that equates to “making fun of our customers.” But, in actuality, people watching the commercial or video do not see themselves as the person in the commercial—unless they want to be that person. If the person is cool or smart or sexy or looks good in those jeans, they might picture themselves as that person. If it’s funny and the person in the commercial is made to look the fool, the viewer does not think, “That buffoon in the commercial is me and they’re making fun of me.” So, if you’re gonna make a joke, there has to be a butt of a joke. All your favorite commercials show people acting foolish, being made fun of and looking like buffoons. That’s why you like them. Because those people are NOT you.

5. Know Your Bedfellows

Analytics and data do a great job of tracking your target around the web. Retargeting allows us to follow people where they go and get our message in front of them. But that’s a big problem. The data doesn’t think or feel. It just follows. So if your target goes to an extreme political website or porn site or another site whose values are inconsistent with that of your brand, your ad goes there too.  So talk to your media company to target safe sites, generally denoted as whitelist sites. And follow @sleepinggiants. They follow extremist websites and let brands know when they’re appearing on the sites without their knowledge. Full disclosure: @sleepinggiants targets Breitbart and helped reduce their ad revenue by nearly 90%. So if you’re a Breitbart fan, this is probably where we part ways.

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The Small Agency Blog is produced by Division of Labor; a top West Coast advertising agency and digital marketing firm that’s been named Small Agency of the Year twice by Ad Age. The award-winning creative shop services clients on a retainer or project basis. And also offers brand consulting services and hourly engagements for startups and brands interested in testing new ideas, but who aren’t quite ready to invest in an integrated campaign or media spend. We can assist with brand strategy, brand voice, early stage asset development, video creation and other communications to get things up and running without busting your budget. Click here for a free consultation.