Go outdoor! Making your creative content go further

Vertical Videos

Already proven to increase campaign effectiveness, Social and OOH are a winning combination when it comes to media buying. Now with a large plant of full-motion digital screens, it’s never been easier for brands to take their social media messaging outdoor. This social amplification has already been successfully delivered by several brands across a wide range of industries, from Cunard Cruises to Very.

It’s the rise of vertical videos, however, that should get marketers excited about Social and DOOH. A staggering 94% of us interact with our phones vertically, and social media platforms are increasing catering to this type of video production. TikTok as an example, has over 689 million monthly users, which has caught the attention of brands using the platform for sponsored ads. But the creative process shouldn’t stop there, as large amounts of DOOH screens have the right portrait orientation to display this social content, allowing brands to streamline their content strategy across both channels. So if vertical is the future of content, then DOOH is in the perfect position (quite literally) to complement this trend.

 Online Interactive Ads

Since the introduction of the banner ad, online advertising has explored ways to engage consumers resulting in a host of interactive, rich media content. With the developments in DOOH, these engaging pieces of content can be easily amplified across interactive DOOH screens – delivering a shared, big screen experience to new audiences. Such example was Clear Channel’s partnership with a ‘gaming for good’ company, Playmob, where fun mini games, originally designed for mobile, were played across Malls Live interactive screens.

When the bulk of the budgets are put towards the initial production of the web application, stretching this online content across media formats seems like a no brainer. What’s more is you can’t fast forward or ad-block OOH, so brands can introduce audiences to interactive content that may have otherwise been avoided.

Augmented Reality

A new but powerful addition to brand’s content strategy, AR has become more accessible and more effective than ever before. With endless environments to augment, OOH is AR’s playground. We have already seen brands using OOH to trigger AR experiences, like this Kikkoman example in Denmark. But with relatively high production costs, brands will want to explore ways of reaching new audiences by introducing additional media formats.

Now it is true there are some creative difficulties. This shouldn’t come as a surprise because it’s in the name - AR experiences augment reality, so how do brands standardise these experiences across media channels when each reality (or environment) is different. Broken down to its simplest form, AR software searches for an image, logo, or character to act as a trigger and guide, which could of course feature on multiple media channels. What the trigger then launches requires some clever use of content.

Not only can OOH be used as an AR trigger, but it can also host the experience using interactive DOOH screens with their in-built cameras. Perhaps the most obvious use case is social AR filters. Snapchat and Facebook have invested heavily in this area and even opened their AR studios to encourage users to create their own. This has resulted in an explosion of interactive, often comedic, AR filters that are delivered through mobile. The huge benefit of bringing this content to DOOH screens is that it takes it from the immediate one-to-one experience, to a one-to-many. Friends and family can all gather round big DOOH screens to experience the often-hilarious results of AR filters together – making for a memorable brand experience.

Time will tell whether cross-media AR campaigns become a thing regularly seen in advertising. For now, opportunities for exciting content go further have never been more present. If you are interested in finding out more, please get in touch with our awarding winning Create team.

David Hill - Create Producer