Brand-building, story-telling advertising | Clear Channel

Out of Home Advertising – the perfect place to start a story

31 Mar 2022 / Campaigns, Opinions
By Ben Hope
Photo of two faces closeup with the slogan Bring On The Sun

What a month of creativity for Out of Home advertising. I've seen a few campaigns that are worthy of highlighting, all with one common theme, as Mike Follett, MD at Lumen Research, commented on our Powerful Posters roundtable earlier this year. Out of Home is a great place to start a story, to start your audience thinking...

Opinion by Ben Hope, Marketing Director 

One of the hardest things for any creative to do is boil down complex thinking into something simple, pure and evocative. And the three campaigns I'm highlighting this month do just that, brilliantly, and provoke an emotive reaction, starting or continuing a story with their target audience.

Specsavers - Should've gone to Specsavers

It would be near impossible for anyone working in marketing to have missed Specsavers new campaign, but it deserves a call out for so many reasons. A superb execution bringing fresh life and humour to a simply perfect ad line, on the 20th anniversary of "Should've gone to Specsavers".

A huge omni-channel launch across an array of channels, its the perfect example of having creativity at the heart of a campaign. The Out of Home element delivers both broadcast reach on a number of different formats, such as on Adshel Live nationwide below, but every execution helps to bring a wry smile to the continuation of Specsavers story.

The cherry on top however are the special builds, which start a story not just outdoor, but amplified across social sharing too. Powerful Posters driving entertainment and brand engagement.

Digital bus stop screen showing Specsavers Advert with the phrase - Should've gone savers to Spec
Two special build billboards for Specsavers showing the Slogan Should've gone to Specsavers

Ace & Tate - Bring on the Sun

And from one continued story, to a completely new one.

It’s a creatives dream to work with a client willing to make a bold, daring move in the name of creativity. And boy, doesn’t this just strike you as a bold move from Ace & Tate. An eyewear brand promoting eyewear, without featuring eyewear. 

Designed and delivered by international branding and comms agency Base Design, the campaign features beautifully shot photography of an eclectic array of people screwing their face up in the brightness of sunlight, alongside the strapline in an offset, retro serif typeset - “Bring on the sun”. It’s almost like our characters are squinting in the real-life sun, beaming on the posters in the real world. It’s something that everyone seeing them can empathise with. We’ve all been there. They’re emotionally evocative because of it.

The simplicity of design and striking imagery certainly has helped to catapult Ace & Tate’s brand forward, and I love how they’ve used Out of Home to start the thinking, start the story, for their audience. With just seconds to grab attention, this campaign certainly does just that. See what our Powerful Posters roundtable creative experts had to say about the power of Out of Home to start a story...  

Close up of six faces for Ace & Tate Advert

CPB London - International Women's Day

Finally, I love this hard-hitting campaign, Imagine, from advertising agency CPB London for International Women's Day, aimed at challenging unconscious gender bias, centred around IWD's 2022 theme 'break the bias'.

It's the perfect example of starting a story for people using the power of outdoor advertising. Asking passers-by to use their imagination to plant the seed of a story, to think of this first thing associated with a number of job roles or behaviours, and then challengingly posing the question of which gender that story has invoked.

The desire of the campaign is to spark more positive and productive conversations around the bias of gender within society, and to help break the bias. A series of Powerful Posters.

Two screens with slogans - imagine a CEO - imagine someone crying in the office for CPB London campaign

If you'd like to see Clear Channel's idea of how to construct Powerful Posters, get in touch.