The Best of the Great (Aussie) Outdoors

What makes the best Outdoor ads? Each category, brand and campaign has a different objective whether it is driving awareness, launching a new product, driving trial, transaction or search. We know that outdoor can do all of these things, but placement, creative and messaging are critical. 

Outdoor offers a variety of platforms from supersize billboards, bus shelters, path to purchase, airport, transit and kiosks. Successful advertisers think carefully about their placement and their messaging. We recommend using seven words or less; be clever; inspire emotion; less is more; and work with the outdoor operator on the best creative for the environment. 

A few of our favourite Out-of-Home (OOH) campaigns provided by Australia’s Outdoor Media Association (OMA).

GAYTM

ANZ Bank’s award-winning GAYTM campaign is back again this year as the bank renews its partnership with Sydney’s Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras festival. The campaign created by Whybin\TBWA Melbourne sees ATMs around Sydney decorated using colours, patterns and jewels inspired by LGBTI culture.

This year the campaign will see one Australian town awarded their very own GAYTM during Mardi Gras. Australians can vote for the location they would like to see host ‘The only GAYTM in the village’ by visiting the ANZ Facebook page or on the campaign’s website.

Advertiser - ANZ Bank
Creative Agency - Whybin\TBWA Melbourne
Year - 2015 

Home Cricket Ground

KFC and Adshel bring Australian living rooms into the outdoor advertising space with the Home Cricket Ground campaign. The special build KFC Cricket listening stations appeared at selected Adshel bus shelter and outdoor locations where listeners could plug their headphones into jacks/ports at the site and listen to the KFC custom station. A QR code at these locations gave listeners the opportunity to download iHeartRadio, and tune in the custom station so they could keep listening wherever they go.

Advertiser – KFC
Creative Agency – Ogilvy
Year – 2015

This Is The New Lexus

For "This Is The New Lexus" campaign, smart billboards identify the brand, model and colour of passing vehicles to trigger a personal and playful message to drivers via the digital display, such as: "Hey white Audi driver, it's time to crossover. This is the new Lexus NX."
 
The format also tailors tactical messages based on other variables such as time of day, weather and traffic conditions to generate messages such as: "Hey black Merc driver, the heavens have opened. This is the new Lexus NX."
 
The activation featured more than 80 different configurations of dynamic messaging on each of the five APN Outdoor sites.

Advertiser – Lexus
Creative agency – M&C Saatchi
Year – 2015

911 Turbo

Porsche launched a digital outdoor campaign that displayed a tailored message on a Melbourne Airport digital billboard when it detected a Porche car approaching.

The campaign, created by oOh! Media and creative agency The Ross Partnership, automatically changed the content on the digital billboard to the message “It’s so easy to pick you out of a crowd” when a Porsche approached.

Advertiser – Porsche
Creative agency – The Ross Partnership
Year – 2015

Text To Listen

Spotify’s “Text to Listen” campaign, was the brand’s first major outdoor campaign in Australia. 

The idea was simple and brilliantly executed across multiple OOH environments. Vibrant posters invited commuters to SMS a number to receive instant access on their smartphone, to music by the likes of Pharrell Williams, Justin Timberlake, Iggy Azalea, Daft Punk, and Lorde. In doing so, people could experience for themselves how Spotify enhances the daily commute with music. 

The campaign was designed to raise awareness of the offering and drive customer acquisition. 

Advertiser – Spotify
Creative agency – Glue Society
Year – 2014


#94shadesofsummer

Sunglass Hut took summer underground with its station domination in Martin Place, Sydney. The campaign spent four weeks bringing the summer sights, sounds and smells of both the beach and jungle to rail commuters on the Martin Place, Sydney, concourse.

Created by Gotham NYC and brought to life by Adshel's experiential team, the activation set out to captivate the affluent professional audience passing through Martin Place, which carries nearly 40,000 commuter journeys daily.


#justatid

Travel Insurance Direct (TID) used APN Outdoor’s OOH transit network to remind would-be travellersthat  sometimes things can go a 'tid' awry when you’re travelling. The humorous creative aimed to keep TID front of mind when searching for travel insurance.

Advertiser – Travel Insurance Direct
Creative agency – AJF Partnership

Year – 2014/2015

McDonald’s Australia let the product do the talking with simple, clear creative – extreme close ups of their world famous products. No copy line, no logo. The campaign took out the OMA's Q4 Creative Collection: 'Best Traditional use of the OOH Medium' category for its execution via Goa.


Advertiser – McDonalds
Creative agency – TBWA Paris
Year – 20134/2015

#colouryoursummer

Coca-Cola broke all its own brand guidelines in an effort to reconnect to teens and make the brand cool again.
Adopting image recognition technology via JCDecaux street furniture, digital screens were turned into interactive games that linked to a reward-based scheme.


Advertiser – Coca-Cola
Creative agency – Ogilvy
Year – 2014/2015

Write Your Own Ending

Bookworld wanted to engage customers with its Christmas competition and partnered with Adshel to fill bus shelters and tram stops with real books. To extend the campaign, Adshel was on hand to remove the glass covering the shelves at selected sites in Sydney and Melbourne to allow commuters to take books home with them.

Bookworld made a video about the campaign, which demonstrates the high level of consumer engagement.


Advertiser – Bookworld
Creative agency – VCCP
Year – 2013




The OMA and MOVE is made up of a small dynamic team of specialists who work together to provide media relations, marketing, revenue reporting, audience measurement, research and management of government relations and regulatory affairs, with the aim to build a more sustainable industry for OMA members.

In 2010, the OMA launched MOVE (Measurement of Outdoor Visibility and Exposure) its Audience Measurement System (AMS). MOVE was a world first in outdoor, introducing Likelihood to See (LTS) which set a benchmark for audience measurement in Australia and overseas. MOVE has been universally accepted as a credible and robust AMS for the industry.

Celebrating creativity in outdoor advertising, the OMA launched OPEN - a series of books featuring a variety of standout Out-of-Home (OOH) campaigns from home and abroad. Click here to find out more.