“I like to think that Out of Home (OOH) advertising is just public space art that happens to be sponsored by your brand,” Josh Gurgiel, head of oOh!media’s creative and innovation hub POLY, told Mediaweek.
oOh!media has been at the forefront of a recent burst in OOH advertising creativity. Breaking away from the static billboard, campaigns include live streaming a digital fashion show in Sydney into Melbourne to relaunch the new Pepsi brand, and a live-action fight sequence stunt to promote Ryan Gosling‘s most recent film, The Fall Guy.
“My team, we think of ourselves as ‘the joy factory’. At the end of the day, we have the opportunity to work hand in hand with brands to create joy in public spaces, and that is not something lost on us,” said Gurgiel.
“A great OOH execution exemplifies the power of when a great brand understands what resonates with their audience, and then it’s brave enough to put that in the public domain. They will reap the rewards of the public responding, doing their media buy for them by amplifying that online, as well as leaving with a positive sentiment about the brand.”
There is method behind the madness, and if you peek behind the curtains of ‘the joy factory’, you’ll find the numbers back up the talk, according to Gurgiel.
“We’ve done several studies with Analytic Partners, looking at the ROI from spending on OOH. One thing that came out of that was that 41% of the ROI that’s generated for every dollar spent on OOH was coming down to the creative itself – so not just the where or the who, but the what,” Gurgiel said.
“That was an insight that has really resonated through the oOh!media business for quite a while now.”
Gurgiel said that two years ago, the business recognised that this spike in OOH creativity wasn’t going anywhere, and that the best bet would be to lean in. It’s a decision that has paid off.
“As we see the landscape changing – other offline channels becoming more fragmented, harder to reach audiences, viewership and engagement declining – this focus on creating experiences within OOH through creativity has only gained more traction.”
There remains a misconception that OOH advertising begins and ends at static billboards. Gurgiel stresses that OOH as a medium serves multiple purposes, and as with any solution, should be anchored in the brand objectives.
“The reality is, yes, a lot of advertisers think of OOH as a static format within the real world – which absolutely has a place, whether that’s classic static or still digital – but having a clear, simple, strong message at scale at frequency is really important.
“At the end of the day, all the marketing science talks about the need to reach audiences, and the need to reinforce and build mental availability over long periods of time. That’s OOH.”
For those brands showing up with the intention of transcending or challenging the traditional ways of using OOH, Gurgiel said they are still focused on both reach and frequency to capture and leverage attention.
“We’re seeing brands leaning into the experiential, and the real out-of-the-box, to tap into that shareability and that online-offline dichotomy that we always talk about.
“You create something in the public domain, it captures attention, people photograph it, and people share it with their networks. We’re seeing brands using OOH now, essentially, as part of their content strategy – they’ll put a really powerful execution in the public domain, and use that to broadcast online and generate owned and earned media off the back of it.”
As attention becomes harder and harder to grab and hold, the impact that creative OOH campaigns have is “undeniable”, Gurgiel claimed.
“We’re exposed to up to 10,000 advertising messages a day – your competitors are not within your category, your competitors are the 9,999 other messages that the consumer is receiving on a daily basis. It’s harder than ever with fragmentation for advertisers to cut through and really have an impact.
“When we’re able to pull off and amplify really powerful content, we get this undeniable feeling of cut-through.”
