Not since the advent of the television ad in 1941 has the potential for new ad formats been so great. The emergence of digital platforms is enabling marketers to experiment with a number of new ad formats, each of which could revolutionize marketing as we know it. Throughout 2014 we have been highlighting the most effective techniques being broadly adopted.

Part VI: Digital Billboard

The billboard (also known as a hoarding outside of the United States) is one of the most iconic advertising forms.  Designed in the early eighteen hundreds to notify the public of upcoming circus performances, its use as an awareness builder for events is still going strong.  Few advertising forms today communicate “NOW” as impressively as a well-executed billboard.

When placed along commuter routes, the built-in frequency from billboards can gently nudge a brand up the awareness continuum, helping a relatively unknown brand vault to the top of a consumer’s evoked set.  And when placed near a retail area, the recency to the shopping event can cue the consumer for a desired purchase decision.

However the short, static nature of billboards has often led to them being pigeonholed into tactical uses within the media plan.  This is similar to the early days of online display advertising when the channel saw little use for strategic messaging such as brand differentiation, new product/feature information, superiority claims and advocacy content.  It wasn’t until the “richer” motion-based display experiences were introduced that the incidence of strategic uses broke double digits and started to approach those of other media such as television.

We see the same trend playing out for digital billboards.  Like static display ads, digital billboards were first promoted for their low cost, speed of deployment, and media planning flexibility.  By eliminating physical printing, start-up costs are minimized and initial designs and subsequent changes to creative can be made more quickly.  And since the cost structure is managed on an impression basis (as opposed to an installation basis) exposure rates can be manipulated across multiple digital billboards to better optimize frequency and reach ratios.  But from a creative standpoint, this type of digital billboard still presents a static viewer experience and therefore the same content density as its traditional counterpart.

Example Digital Billboard with Rotating Static Exposures

But brands are now starting to experiment with the dynamic and interactive capabilities of digital billboards.  This new generation holds much promise for elevating the medium into the realm of strategic campaigns.  The following case studies showcase some of the best examples of brands using digital billboards in strategic ways.

New Product Feature: Coca-Cola ‘Share-a-Coke’ Australia Launch

Brand Differentiation: Forever 21 Times Square

Superiority Claim: British Airways

Of course digital billboards will still be used for the time-honored tradition of event notification.  Only now they will be shows in themselves!

Event Notification: Cirque du Soleil McNamara Airport

Please contact your MSW●ARS representative to learn more about techniques for evaluating the performance of out-of-home advertising.

Lake Success, NY, April 24, 2014 – MSW●ARS Research, has been awarded U.S. Patent, #8,676,638 for the system and method underlying the innovative Outlook® Media Planner.

The Outlook Media Planner is an app that enables marketers to run multiple “what-if” scenarios to determine the likely impact their advertising will have on sales and market share.  The Outlook Media Planner can be used as an upstream tool, while advertising is in development, or as a downstream tool, after ads have been produced and are ready for airing.  Marketers can use these “what if” scenarios to optimize total media weight as well as the distribution of weight among all the ads in a plan.

How does it work?

The Outlook Media Planner applies proven algorithms to key marketing variables in the context of media costs and the brand’s current market position.  It incorporates the newest learnings on advertising strength, effective media weight, wearout, continuity and competitive environment to estimate an advertising plan’s likely quarterly impact on the bottom line.  The application is modularized to answer a variety of common marketing questions such as:

What if my budget gets cut; can I still make my numbers?

• What amount of media spend is necessary to meet my business objectives?
• How many ad executions will I need?
• When will my ads need to be refreshed with new ones?
• What will the sales impact be this quarter?
• What’s the optimal allocation of GRPs between my 30 and 15-second television ads?

Frank Findley, Vice President Research & Development at MSW●ARS and co-inventor added “Up till now marketers were forced to use blunt rules of thumb for ad planning and forecasting.  The data was available for a more rigorous approach but the complexity made it difficult and time consuming to do.  The Outlook Media Planner automates the process making it fast and convenient.”

About MSW●ARS Research, Inc.

MSW●ARS offers a product suite that evaluates, quantifies and optimizes the impact of advertising messages and campaigns comprised of any combination of touch points, including television, print, radio, outdoor and digital.  MSW●ARS helps marketers build brands by providing world class research solutions in the following areas: brand strategy, all stages of creative development from early concept to fully finished ads, campaign evaluation across all marketing and media channels, advertising and brand equity tracking, media planning and strategy, return-on-investment and forecasting.  The company provides solutions and consulting to marketers across traditional and digital marketing including: media mix optimization, media budget allocation, media and message connection, channel selection, digital media and emerging platforms.

MSW●ARS techniques are the world’s most widely documented and independently validated predictive measures of the effectiveness of advertising creative and have been equated with higher sales and market share through third-party validation.

MSW●ARS has a roster of marquee clients representing virtually every product category, including: Consumer Packaged Goods, Retail, Financial Services, Telecommunications, Technology, Automotive, and Pharmaceutical industries.

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Because the dynamics of the marketplace are always changing, tracking is the best way to provide the necessary intelligence on current marketing position. Tracking enables marketers to structure future actions so that each brand’s potential is reached.

No matter how predictive the pre-testing or how sophisticated the market mix modeling, a number of different short-term, and often immediate, distortions can affect how your brand touch points ultimately perform:

• Competitive Activity – The mix of competitive marketing communications can confuse consumers and blur the message they receive.

• Threshold Effects – The campaign might not achieve sufficient exposure among part of the target audience to surpass the basic clutter threshold.

• Contamination – Other marketing actions can distort the advertising effect and influence the way people remember your brand promise.

So, the basic question remains: “Is your tracking service able to accurately tell you the worth of your individual and collective brand touch points?”

Specifically, your tracking must address the following questions before you can confidently say that it is telling you what your marketing programs are worth:

• Where are we?
  First and foremost you need to understand the current Brandscape — where your brands are located and how they are perceived. Because tracking measures the brand in its competitive context it provides important intelligence on the current marketing position.

• How did we get here?
  Most trackers monitor movement over time. Consequently with history we can explain how you have arrived at your current position.

• Where are we going?
  This is where most trackers fall down. Tracking must have the ability to look forward. MSW has validated the use of a series of Customer Commitment Persuasion questions to deliver to this fundamental need.

• Where should we be?
  Investigation of Brand Strength indicates the key aspect(s) that needs to be reinforced to promote Brand Health and volume. When taken together with an annual strategic study, tracking determines the key drivers of brand preference, i.e., those images and motives that drive future brand preference.

• Are we getting there?
  Once strategy has been defined – tracking must report on the progress and determine whether any competitive action is inhibiting the attainment of this strategy and specific objectives. This is a business measurement, not an academic exercise. That means it must provide a return on investment analysis that is validated.

Tracking that delivers to these needs provides a key role to complement market mix modeling, ongoing analysis of database data, and other research in the marketing process. When tracking does not deliver to these needs, it represents little more than a routine report that no one really pays attention to.