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The rules for outdoor creative has changed

Story featured in Campaign

There used to be three rules when it came to designing creative work for outdoor advertising. First, the product was a static poster, usually customised from a press ad. Second, the copy changed on two-week cycle. And third, the audience was people on the move, weighted to younger, upmarket consumers, and with a typical dwell time of just a few seconds to a few minutes at most. Of these three rules, it is only the third one that remains true.

A new breed of digital outdoor ad opportunities, from the giant Torch on the M4 to the digital escalator panels on the London Underground, is now changing the creative mediascape.

There are digital screens in almost every public space, from the enormous screens in Piccadilly Circus in London, George Square in Glasgow, and the Transvision network in mainline rail stations, to panels on the sides of buses and the array of screens in retail areas such as hairdressers or shopping malls.

While the sector has been around for several years, it is set for a new injection of energy with the upgrade of the London Underground and the construction of Heathrow's Terminal 5.
Clear Channel has joined with Esprit Digital - the company behind CBS Outdoor's Tube escalator panels - to install digital panels in UK bus shelters.

Following an initial two-month campaign for Bacardi, the panels could turn into a permanent presence, depending on advertiser demand.

The digital format means the creative execution can now be animated, which provides greater visual appeal, and it can be altered according to the time of day or the day of the week.

'For the first time, people can buy by day part, that is to buy it in the same way you do other media,' Chris O'Donnell, the business development director at the poster buying specialist Kinetic, says. As a result, clients have been quick to take advantage of this flexibility.

At the same time, clients are striving to create that visual 'wow' factor, as well as make the most of the possibilities offered by animation.

For example, the charity Shelter used the escalator panels on the Tube to display ads of children in poor housing trying to break out of the screens.

Superstructures such as JCDecaux's Torch dominate the landscape, and create visual stand-out for brands.

Neil Morris, the managing director of Grand Visual, which specialises in digital outdoor creative work, says the industry is still getting to grips with the new medium, but the quality of creative work is improving by the month.

He argues that the key is to tailor the creative to the environment.

'With digital outdoor, you still have an outdoor audience and they're usually on a journey,' Morris says. 'People talk about digital outdoor like it's some kind of homogeneous medium, but it's not.

'The creative needs to start from the point of understanding the environment and the audience. Using a moving image doesn't mean just making things whizz around and throwing in all the special effects you
can.'

Paul Evans, the senior media manager at InBev, believes the creative needs to be made from scratch. 'In digital out-of-home, the worst thing you can do is just run a TV ad,' he says.

Digital technology is also creating new avenues for interactivity, particularly via the use of Bluetooth, which is embedded in everything from Transvision screens to special-build bus shelters or six-sheet units, in order to link posters and mobile phones.

Barry Sayer, the chief executive of Clear Channel, says interactivity was used to great effect on a recent campaign for COI, which was celebrating 60 years of public information films.
Members of the public could download films such as Charley Says and The Green Cross Code on to their mobiles via a Bluetooth-enabled six-sheet unit in the foyer of the National Film Theatre and the Imax Cinema.

But Jon Slatkin, the chief executive of Titan Outdoor UK, adds that it is crucial customers opt to receive interactive content.

The sector is still quite small. It was worth just under pounds 30 million in 2006, but it won't stay that way for long. Digital revenue rose from 2.9 per cent of overall outdoor revenue in 2005 to 3.2 per cent in 2006, and the Outdoor Advertising Association predicts digital will account for more than 10 per cent of outdoor ad revenue by 2012.

With this sort of growth comes the challenge for agencies to make the most of a new medium brimming with creative opportunities.

AIRPORT ADVERTISING

Airport advertising used to be about long-term clients targeting a staid business audience; it was almost impossible to target leisure travellers separately.

The advent of digital screens has altered the dynamics of airport advertising, Julie France, the managing director of JCDecaux Airport, argues. 'We can sell short term or long term, or by day part, or you can just buy a day,' she says.

'If Chelsea is playing in Milan, and there is a flight from Heathrow, we've got digital screens at the gate so you can target the football fans on that specific flight, and you can do that for one day.'

She adds that JCDecaux has invested in research to show how the mindset of passengers changes throughout the airport. It goes from the heightened awareness during the stressful check-in and security procedures to the relaxed retail atmosphere of the departure concourse.

JCDecaux renewed its contract for airport advertising, worth an estimated pounds 500 million over ten years, with BAA last year, and it has now embarked on a pounds 25 million upgrade of the estate. The concession covers Heathrow, Gatwick and five other airports, and will expand with the opening of Heathrow Terminal 5, which is due in March of next year.

France says Heathrow and Gatwick already have some digital screens but, after the opening of Terminal 5, there will be 700 digital screens across the airport estate. Most of them will be at Heathrow. One in two advertising panels at the new terminal will be digital, and will be mostly 57-inch LCD screens provided by Fujitsu.

France says digital outdoor offers massive potential for creative agencies.
'In terms of creativity, you can go from a static image that is electronically changed, through to video without sound,' she says.

'Somewhere in the middle is probably the right answer, and we're talking to online agencies because that sort of animation works well, especially where you've got a run of screens.'

THE DIGITAL UNIVERSE

Developments on the London Underground and in Heathrow Airport are poised to enliven what is already a thriving digital outdoor sector.

The universe of digital outdoor products is diverse and is expanding rapidly. Some examples include:

- Transvision, Titan Outdoor's network of huge screens next to the indicator boards at 16 major mainline rail stations.

- CBS Outdoor has LED displays with GPS units that target advertising to the physical location on the sides of London's red buses.

- Clear Channel has a giant screen in Piccadilly Circus - the largest in the UK - and a network of ten digital billboards in locations such as the Hyde Park roundabout and Cromwell Road in London.

- Clear Channel is also developing digital bus shelter examples with Esprit Digital, the company behind CBS Outdoor's Tube panels.

- Ocean Outdoor has two 70 square-metre screens at George Square in Glasgow, the largest commercial LED screens outside of Piccadilly Circus.

- JCDecaux has the Torch, a digital super-structure on the M4.

- Streetbroadcast, which specialises in raised six-sheets on lampposts in retail parks and roadside locations around the UK, is now introducing a digital screen network called StreetLive, which combines public service messages from the local government authority with advertising.

- Primesight, owned by SMG, is planning to introduce digital screens in convenience stores, health clubs and cinema foyers by the end of 2007.

- Screen FX has digital screens in 52 shopping centres, in the pedestrian concourse and food halls.
- MDM.TV has plasma screens showing content and advertising at football stadia around the country, and the Manchester Arena music venue.

- A vast array of in-store television opportunities, such as Tesco TV, which is run by Dunnhumby, and Fresh TV in Sainsbury's convenience stores, run by Firebrand Media.

- Away from supermarkets, the in-store opportunities include Avanti Screenmedia's digital screens in bars and health clubs, i-vu's screens in hair salons, and the Pharmacy Channel.

THE LONDON UNDERGROUND

The London Underground is a 19th-century infrastructure that is the recipient of a 21st-century makeover.

CBS Outdoor, which won the renewal of the prized contract with Transport for London last year, is investing some pounds 72 million in upgrading the advertising estate on the Tube.

Tim Bleakley, the UK managing director, sales and marketing, for CBS Outdoor, explains that digital is core to the upgrade, although the programme does also include simple measures such as putting frames on all poster sides.
'It has a massive effect on how people view the environment,' Bleakley says. 'They walk out of these (refurbished) stations with a spring in their step.

'Advertisers have been very supportive, and the creative use of the (existing digital) products has changed significantly in the past 18 months.'

The digital escalator panels that have proved so successful in a trial at Tottenham Court Road station are being rolled out across the network They are already in place at Charing Cross, Paddington, Euston and Bond Street stations.

The screens not only offer all the benefits of digital outdoor, with time-sensitive advertising and remote copy change, but are also linked so the animation can jump from one screen to another.

This has been used to great creative effect with campaigns such as 20th Century Fox's promotion for Rocky Balboa, showing Sylvester Stallone running up and down the stairs.

There are also two other digital products in the pipeline for the London Underground.
In May, CBS started installing 52-inch LCD panels in ticket halls, showing full-motion video in high-definition quality, but with no sound as a safety precaution.

Finally, development of cross-track projection, which has worked so well in other countries, but is more difficult to execute on the curved walls of the Tube network, is well underway.

'A lot of work is going on behind the scenes, and we will have a live trial in a station environment some time in the next few months,' Bleakley says.