A new initiative by Adcentricity [1], New York, is geared to helping anyone who is even considering developing or designing a digital out-of-home campaign and it’s being made available to one and all at no cost.
The Digital OOH Advertising Creative Reference Guide is an extensive creative reference document towards which 14 companies contributed and shared their experiences and insight into what works when developing and designing successful DOOH campaigns.
Adcentricity, North America’s largest aggregator and award winning strategist for DOOH, worked on developing the document over the past two months, says Jeff Atley, senior vice-president and co-founder of Adcentricity.
“The creative element to any advertising campaign is paramount in achieving optimal success,” says Atley. “The effort and resources to optimize a DOOH ad spot is typically insignificant in order to optimize the initiative and investment. This paper helps to give a fundamental understanding of DOOH and takes into account basic components relative to the unique nature of the medium and shows that simple changes can make a difference in performance.”
Identifying the things to be considered and the challenges therein to be included in the 20 page document necessitated some 10 hours of filming experienced executives who have been immerased in working in the DOOH field. They included: Laurie Freudenberg, vice-president operations, Adcentricity; Derek Neal and Noreen Santilli, associate creative directors, Cheil Communications [2]; Sherif Fahmy, director – shopper marketing, Mindshare [3]; Mark Nelson, senior vice-president, corporate partner program, Nielsen Claritas [4]v; Paul Flannigan, partner, The Preset Group [5]; Jeremy Lockhorn, vice-president, emerging media, Razorfish [6]; Peter Viento, executive creative director, Saatchi X [7]; Stephen Ghigliotty, president,ScreenVOX [8]; Phil Lenger, president and founder, Show & Tell; Michael Chase, president, St. Joseph’s Content [9]; Jason Agar, creative director, Stone Canoe [10]; Kevin Chandoo, creative director, Technicolor [11] ; Dave Stubbs, partner, Teehan+Lax [12]; and Vivian Rosenthal, partner and founder, Tronic Studio [13].
They discussed:
- Planning;
- Audience Profiles & Behavior;
- Venue Profile;
- Environment;
- Screen Characteristics;
- Content and Programming;
- Context and Relevance;
- Ad Characteristics;
- The Screens;
- Campaign Message & Objectives;
- Creative Assets;
- Evaluation & Measurement.
The Guide is designed so that parts that are relevant to certain staff groups can be pulled out and used as a ‘teaching’ tool or to promote discussion during campaign development. These includes various video shots.
“We don’t see it as the be-all and end-all, but it’s the first guide of its type and we believe it will get the ball rolling,” says Atley. “It identified challenged and how they can be overcome. We see it as a tool to ensure that media investments are optimized through great creative.”
There are numerous sound bites and insights from collaborators throughout.
For example, Cheil Communications’ Santilli, says, “Graphic elements in DOOH have to be more dynamic and at the same time simple. It is better to keep content fun and stay away from elaborate A to B storylines. Keep supers and verbiage to a minimum, because the target may not catch all of the spot.”
“The digital out of home medium is progressing through the evolutionary challenges that all new mediums face,” Atley says. “The medium itself continues to prove its abilities of targeting, stopping power, media awareness, consumer influence, reach and relevance. This guide should help advertisers understand how to optimize creative for greater ROI when leveraging the medium.”
And, he says, “We’re looking for feedback 0n ways to further improve it.”
This video clip shows some of the collaborators [14] in discussion.
The complete guide in PDF format, will be available for free at www.adcentricity.com [1] on Monday.