Hacking Out Of Home: 5 Ways Marketers Can Bring a Spark to Their Marketing Mix

I love Out of Home. It’s one of the oldest advertising channels, but its role is constantly being reinvented by technology, by data and by the places it appears.

In many ways, OOH is the the purest expression of an idea. It can be incredibly straightforward yet also at the bleeding edge of creativity. It can allow marketers to be inventive without breaking the bank.

But how do you truly get that right? It’s easier said than done. So we made Hacking OOH the subject of our first Spark Something webinar - this is a series that dives into the key challenges faced by the modern-day marketer. Cutting the waffle and the fluff and discussing real solutions for real problems.

Our first modern-day marketers in the hot seat were Beccy Dye and Steve Seddon. Beccy is head of brand at Leeds Building Society, where she’s been responsible for great OOH campaigns such as Losthaven, which showcased the difficulties facing first-time home buyers. Prior to LBS she was head of brand at Hiscox, another business with outstanding OOH heritage. 

Meanwhile Steve is the chief marketing officer of Ice Travel Group, which owns TravelSupermarket and icelolly.com. From starting off his career creating award-winning OOH for Virgin Trains to making headlines with a recent inflatable-inspired activation for TravelSupermarket, Steve has some fantastic insight on the past, present and future of getting OOH right. 

And as you’d predict from these experts - who were also joined by our amazing executive creative director Juliet McLaren - there was a lot to discuss. The conversation flowed from storied icons like British Airways and McDonald’s doing amazing work with simple brand assets, to those ads placed on the sides of motorways that farmers have rented out in their fields.

We talked about a shared love of bus sides (loved for many reasons, not just because you tend to get them for much longer than you actually pay for them!), and wondered just how the Dublin to New York portal - an idea we’ve seen in hundreds of pitch decks over the years but never got signed off for fear of what could happen - actually got signed off (because, yes, the inevitable did happen).

For me, there were a ton of takeaways from the debate. I’ve picked out five below, but if you want to hear them all - and unpack my summaries below in greater detail - then email me at rob@bravespark.com and I’d be happy to share the whole recording… 

1. Creative Simplicity makes OOH Simply Creative

I’ve covered why I love OOH, but what about our panellists? For all three of them, it always seemed to ladder back to one thing: it’s one of the most beautifully simplistic forms of creativity. “It’s part of our every day lives, it gets you where your consumers are,” Beccy said. “Nobody talks about ‘amazing digital display ads’ they’ve seen, but they’ll remember OOH ads for a long time.” 

“OOH is every creative’s dream,” our ECD Juliet added. “With our attention spans decreasing, it’s a perfect space to get your message across quickly and powerfully.” That doesn’t mean it’s easy - history is littered with great thinkers remarking on ‘the simple being harder than the complex’. But whether you’re thinking of using OOH to supplement a campaign or as a jumping off point for PR, the message from all our panellists was to embrace the simplicity, know your strategy and use the medium to bring that campaign idea to life in its cleanest form. 

2. Know your sites

Know the context in which your work is being seen and, as Steve said “don’t buy based on a random list of postcodes you’ve never been to”. This goes beyond finding out where your boss lives and buying the sites nearby (though who of us hasn’t done that!?)... take time to truly understand your audience and where they will be most aware of your work. Are they predominantly commuters, and therefore your work should be contextualised and placed within transport hubs? If your mass market is in regional towns and cities, should you be getting all excited about digital 96-sheets in Leicester Square, when the bulk of your audience pass digital 6-sheets and static 48-sheets every day? 

And if you are going to be clever with locations, make sure you’re truly aware of the area. Steve referred to Magnum’s ad in Manchester Piccadilly Gardens, which claimed their ice cream is ‘the only thing that could make lying on Piccadilly Gardens even better’. Despite being one of Manchester’s largest ‘green’ spaces, Piccadilly Gardens is known by locals more for its drug use, crime and anti-social behaviour than a top sunbathing spot. And it opened itself up to months of ridicule. 

3. Be clear about what you’re trying to do (and communicate that)

OOH is a difficult medium to measure - and I liked the panellists' advice to anyone dipping their toe in the OOH water to not worry too much about initial measurement and just test a bit of work to get a feel of what’s right. Then when it does come to focus on measurement, be really clear on your overall campaign KPIs, and then work out how you measure OOH within that. 

As Beccy says: “OOH has traditionally been seen as an awareness driver, but it can work through the funnel, so be clear on how you intend it to work and then be clear to your finance team about saying what it is and isn’t going to do.” 

Oh, and as Steve adds: “I know QR codes are having their day again, but don’t go down the route of measuring campaign success by who’s accessed them - otherwise you’ll never do Out of Home again!”

4. Can you fake it ‘til you make it? Maybe…

CGI-driven and ‘faux’ OOH was the topic most of our audience asked about in the lead up to our event, and it’s unsurprisingly dividing industry opinion. Our panel presented both sides of the argument but were unequivocal about one thing: If you’re going to do it, do it well. “When it’s done well, it’s really impactful,” Steve explained, “it’s a great way to democratise marketing. But for every good one, there are a hundred shit ones out there.” 

It comes back to knowing your audience. Will they relate to it? Is it true to your brand? Will they appreciate the thinking? As Beccy said: “In a world of fake news, mistrust and people scared of Ai, there’s a thin line for brands to tread in creating fakeness… for some brands it really works, they get some great PR out of it, but when it’s badly done, it looks cheap and awful.” So approach - especially if it can open up spaces you didn’t previously think was possible - but approach with caution. Get partners on board who know how to do it right.

5. Always keep an eye on what’s next

There are tons of other great insights I could put as number five (you’ll just have to watch the whole webinar to find those nuggets), but I was invigorated when I asked the panel for advice on how they stay energised about OOH and what excites them about what’s next. Juliet highlighted TikTok’s role in this space - their new ‘Out of Phone’ offer in particular - as one to embrace. It provides a genuine engagement between the space and the person. Because like it or not, people are going to continue to be ‘head down’ rather than ‘head up’, so innovation is going to come from the connectivity between the mobile phone and OOH sites.  

And how to stay excited? Keep your creative agency, media agency and in-house teams close. We believe great creativity comes from great collaboration. And whilst that doesn’t sound new, it’s still priority number one. How frustrating is it, Juliet explained, to have to shift the idea because the media’s not been bought, or having to lose out on media spots because the creative’s not up to scratch. Bring your teams together, ask them to have some fun with a few OOH briefs. And whether the result is 100 real life inflatables pinned up in Manchester or a jacket seemingly (but not really) enveloping Big Ben, it may result in an idea that truly hits the spot.

Rob Drake is the founder of Brave Spark. Secure your own copy of the Spark Something webinar by emailing rob@bravespark.com