Outdoor Advertising Effectiveness
Andy Pang, marketing and research manager at Clear Channel Outdoor UK, reports on the latest thinking in media research and explains how multiple touchpoints and greater frequency are methods advertisers should employ to ‘hardwire’ messages to today’s consumers…
Clear Channel Outdoor recently hosted its inaugural seminar dedicated to outdoor research, where agencies and clients gathered to hear the latest developments in planning, neuroscience and econometrics. Clear Channel and Millward Brown also revealed the insights gained from 10 years of research through the Clear Channel Research Monitor – a huge database of knowledge which we have used to drive our pioneering Audience Solutions programme, deliver more accountability for clients and feed back learnings to increase the effectiveness of outdoor campaigns.
Advertising creative has a huge influence over the effectiveness of a campaign, and in the outdoor medium the importance of getting it right is even more critical. Sue Elms, executive vice president at Millward Brown, discussed how using research to pre-test advertising creative not only gives the advertiser confidence in a creative execution but also offers the opportunity to tweak, adjust or reject a piece of advertising based on the feedback of target audiences.
Caroline Hayter Whitehill, co-founder and strategist at Acacia Avenue, drew on neuroscience and psychology to reveal insights into consumer behaviour. She outlined the importance of proximity advertising, which can be used to break-through habitual behaviour.
She explained that consumers may be exposed to brand messages and advertising touchpoints at any point in their decision-buying process and gave examples of how Outdoor advertising had the power to persuade consumers to make an impulse purchase and at the same time build brand equity.
Caroline discussed the different journey mindsets which can alter by day, time and location. Neuroscience has helped uncover four main mindsets when it comes to commuter journeys and exposure to Outdoor advertising: Chilled Out; Engage Me; Busy, Busy, Busy and Autopilot. Each one of these mindsets has differing influences on a consumer’s absorption of brand messages.
She emphasised that hardwiring of brand messages can take up to two years to build and even longer to change. As a result, frequency is essential to ensure that a brand message has a chance of becoming hardwired into recipients’ brains – and to reach them when they are in receptive mindsets.
Other speakers at the seminar included Martyn Stokes, MPG’s award-winning strategy director, and Sally Dickerson, managing director of OMD Metrics, who demonstrated a clear upward trend in ROI with increased spend on outdoor. Drawing on OMD’s metrics results vault, Sally suggested that the optimum percentage of media investment in outdoor advertising for an FMCG brand is 16%. Another insight from our own Research Monitor is that brands on average receive an incremental awareness boost of 40% with precise targeting.
MPG’s work for Magners, which puts 22% of its media budget into outdoor and uses proximity targeting to great effect, is a fantastic example of the power of outdoor advertising. Research and measurement revealed the advertising campaign had a major impact on sales and, as a result, the client has pledged to keep investing in the outdoor medium, as presence and visibility are essential in gaining long-term success.