Traditionally, out-of-home (OOH) has been considered a top-of-the-funnel medium due to its ability to broadcast to a large audience, thereby driving awareness and consideration for brands, by speaking to as many current or potential future customers as possible, utilising the exceptional reach and rapid cover-building qualities of the medium. Yet, what has been overlooked until recently is that OOH clearly also works on the bottom of the funnel, driving acquisition and conversion. Advertisers are becoming more and more demanding when it comes to seeking solutions for planning, delivery and evaluation of their campaigns. It has become critical to connect the dots between media investments and tangible business results to enable advertisers to make the most of their campaigns.
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An end-to-end data offer for each step of the marketing strategy
To address the new expectations of its clients, brands and agencies, JCDecaux launched JCDecaux Data Solutions in September 2021. A data offering built around three core pillars, JCDecaux Data Solutions is designed to help advertisers achieve their marketing objectives at every step of the campaign:
OPTIMISE for campaign planning, content delivery and creativity: these solutions help to plan a campaign with a complete understanding of the audience around the OOH assets and tailor the advertising message for maximum visual impact and relevance.
ENGAGE for effectively and efficiently connecting with the audience: create memorable and engaging experiences delivering heightened consideration and amplifying the impact of all media across multiple touchpoints.
EVALUATE for understanding the performance of each OOH campaign: leverage on measurement solutions to evaluate the desired KPIs, from brand-building metrics in the long-term to immediate business impacts such as visit attribution and micro-conversions, and objectively assess success and areas for growth, for future optimisation.
This offering is underpinned by a collaborative growth mindset and is structured to be used as part of a bespoke learning agenda for each advertiser, ensuring that advertising investment in OOH media is sustainable for their brand. Following the ‘data by design’ approach, the objective is to work hand in hand with the advertiser to deliver improved results across the marketing funnel.
Creative Heatmap, a ground-breaking data-driven creative optimisation tool
An example of these solutions is the Creative Heatmap tool, which leverages artificial intelligence to estimate the performance of an OOH campaign by understanding which parts of the advertising visual the audience will focus on. Leveraging on eye-tracking technology, the tool was built using JCDecaux and third-party (Ipsos) data from multiple markets. To ensure an efficient OOH campaign, establishing artwork optimal visibility is critical: what works on social may not work in OOH.
Creative Heatmap is a solution that helps advertisers understand and evaluate their creative, and improve it, if required. Our objective is not only to help brands gain an insight into the audience they are targeting with their campaigns but also act as consultants to help them optimise their creative strategy and align their artwork with the formats and environments they’re present in. When it comes to OOH, context is key. While selecting the relevant environment to target the right audience is crucial, the importance of an impactful and eloquent creative cannot be undermined in creating long-term brand memorability and recall. By using Creative Heatmap, a brand can establish whether the key branding or executional elements are likely to draw attention or be recalled. An added advantage is that advertisers can test multiple campaign artworks and adjust their creatives or other elements to achieve the desired objectives.
Delivering brand-lift measurement
To provide solutions to evaluate the performance of a brand’s campaign, JCDecaux has partnered with a leading online market research platform. Our post-campaign evaluation aims to assess the campaign perception (advertising recall, impact of the creative) along with the impact on the brand throughout the marketing funnel – from top-of-mind and prompted brand awareness to efficacy of the artwork in establishing emotional connect, and uplift in consideration & purchase intent.
In November 2021, JCDecaux Dubai conducted post-campaign studies for two luxury brands that advertised on the Jumeirah Road lamppost network. Interestingly, both campaigns were seen and recalled by 65 per cent of the respondents, with campaign creatives delivering excellent salience and appeal, thereby driving purchase intent and recommendation. Brand consideration and purchase intent were higher (+22 per cent and +15 per cent respectively) for those who recalled seeing the advertisement on Jumeirah Road.
To address the OOH measurement challenge in an industry that is transforming rapidly, JCDecaux Data Solutions aims to deliver simplicity, agility, comparability, transparency and efficiency in executing data-driven OOH and DOOH campaigns.
While the quantitative aspects (reach, unique audience, OTS…) form an important part of OOH measurement, they should not be the only focus for advertisers to evaluate their campaign. The core strength of OOH as a medium is to leverage on a specific context and environment to reach a brand’s communication objectives, which can only be captured by integrating some qualitative aspects into the equation (uncluttered media territory, premium audience profile…)
