ghotbusters-waterloo-2016-4-outdoor
The scale, viewability and dramatic effect of outdoor advertising helps marketers create cut-through and capture consumer attention in a world where other messages struggle to get through.
Less appreciated is the variety of marketing objectives it can achieve. As brands have shown recently, outdoor has applications at different stages of the purchase funnel and can execute on several elements of a marketing strategy.

1. Creating interest via experiences

In July, Sony marked the release of Ghostbusters with a takeover of London’s Waterloo station, centred on a giant installation of the film’s Stay Puft Marshmallow Man character emerging from the ground. Waterloo was chosen for its footfall and scale. The station was adorned with ectoplasm, ticket barrier branding and a wrap of the Underground station. Collaborating with JCDecaux, screens showed spoof news footage, while a pop-up shop offered Ghostbusters merchandise and Odeon representatives sold film tickets.
Instead of a simple awareness drive, the takeover aimed to push the concept further, explains Sony Pictures deputy managing director and marketing director Stuart Williams. “We wanted an integrated experiential outdoor element that worked on a number of levels. We always look at how to ‘eventise’ a film and be part of the zeitgeist, and the scale of this installation allowed us to do that. We were trying to give a nod back to the original film with the iconic Stay Puft character, but with a new spin.”
The objective of outdoor is not to go viral on social, it’s to build awareness and increase engagement
Darcy Keller, Financial Times
The outdoor activity impressed Williams with its amplification through publicity and engagement, helping the film have a point of difference among the summer blockbusters.

2. Providing product education

Outdoor advertising has been part of the Facebook media mix for several years. While brand awareness was the focus of the ‘Friends’ (2015) and ‘A Place For All’ (2016) campaigns, Facebook’s latest out-of-home (OOH) shifted towards product awareness.
“The Facebook Live campaign is designed to educate people on how to go live on Facebook, and to inspire people to go live with their friends,” explains Ewan Adams, communications planning manager. “For these two aims OOH works well. We get the awareness-building performance from large format OOH and contextual relevance from street-level OOH.”
READ MORE: outdoor advertising:How OOH advertising is moving beyond awareness