System1 and JCDecaux UK’s OOH Of the Month for April
Each month, we’ll look at Out of Home advertising and bring you some of the most effective work we’ve found – Out of Home ads that really do have that “Ooh!” factor.
We share three of the best ads we’ve seen over the past month. OOH Of the Month is a collaboration between System1 and JCDecaux UK, so as well as the metrics you might be familiar with from System1, we’re bringing in JCDecaux UK’s Attention Score, which predicts the elements of each ad that will attract audience focus. On the System1 side of things, our reports include our short-term Spike Rating and long-term Star Rating, which have been predicting advertising effectiveness for 15 years. And we also look at Fast Fluency – how much of the audience recognizes the brand being advertised.
System1’s Test Your Ad isn’t just about video. They also predict the long- and short-term impact of Out of Home ads, both static images and digital billboards, and each month, System1 and JCDecaux UK put the top three under the spotlight to see who really has the OOH Factor.
OOH OF THE MONTH April 2025
Out-of-home advertising is usually built for simplicity and speedy understanding – with only seconds to make an impression on a passer-by, outdoor ads need to convey brand and message immediately.
But paradoxically, outdoor and poster advertising is also the home of some of the most creative and subtle visual messaging – ads which may not reveal their full meaning at first glance. At System1, our Test Your Ad Outdoor platform provides insight into both immediate impact and recognition, but also into the success of those more complex messages.
So this month’s search for the OOH Factor takes in three ads which have more going on than a first glance might suggest. None of them work perfectly, but they all have strengths, and those strengths can teach marketers something about how subtle visual indicators work.
Our first stop is Canada, with a KFC ad which takes the brand’s famous “Finger Lickin’ Good” slogan and visualizes it in a new way, with a deep close-up of a single fingertip and one tiny fragment of the brand’s famous seasoned coating. KFC’s chicken is so tasty, the message is that you’ll want to make sure you eat every last crumb. This ad is the most immediate of the three we’re looking at, with the only puzzling element being the distorted sense of scale, as your eyes adjust to the fact you’re looking at a crumb, not a whole piece of KFC.
Because of that immediacy, the ad scores particularly well on Fast Fluency (instant recognition) with a Strong rating, and that feeds into an Exceptional short-term Spike Rating (sales potential) on Test Your Ad. This poster is powerfully motivating and will boost sales, even if it doesn’t have a lot of emotional impact for viewers. The ad is a testament to the power of a great slogan: without even a logo on the poster, “Finger Lickin’ Good” is doing a lot of work to guide people to the more subtle visual messaging and identity in the ad.
In Austria, fellow fast food chain McDonald’s are trying something similar with an advertisement where the only obvious brand identity is the slogan – “I’m Lovin’ It”. There’s no food in the ad, which simply shows a large window in mid-clean, with the word “Fruhling” (“Spring” in German) telling us this is spring cleaning. But look closer – the arc of the window-washer’s sponge and the yellow of the building revealed through the window form part of the McDonalds “M”, the ‘golden arches’ that play such a big role in their advertising.
McDonald’s have a tradition of clever visual jokes and references like this – the golden arches have played the role of everything from road signs to beams of light in ads around the world. In this case the visual identity may be a little too subtle, with only a modest Fast Fluency score on Test Your Ad. But the ad still gets a strong short-term Spike and a long-term Star Rating (brand-building potential) that’s well above the category average, because its emotional impact is higher. The imagery is happy and positive, and the idea of spring cleaning has a powerful appeal. This immediate positive impact will help the less obvious visual branding land better on future viewings. The lesson here is that if your ad is using a subtle visual reference, make sure its immediate meaning makes viewers feel good too.
Our third ad, for Tinder in Mexico, hides a dark visual joke behind warm imagery. An open fire conjures images of a romantic night in for two, but look closer and you see a cardboard heart burning in the flames. “Day of the Ex” is the ad’s title, the implication being that when your relationship is over, you can turn to the dating app for a fresh start. Tinder are taking no chances with brand recognition, as their logo is central and very prominent to the ad.
This turns out to be the right idea, as few of our Test Your Ad respondents noticed the burning heart, though many responded positively to the fire imagery. But almost nobody failed to realize who the ad was for, with exceptional Fluency and Fast Fluency scores, way ahead of the LatAm Outdoor average. Even if people didn’t realize why the poster shows what it does, the combination of the brand and the hot imagery was a powerful and memorable combination.
So what are the lessons for brands who want to get creative with subtle visual messaging and still retain the OOH Factor? The big one is that you need a first-impression insurance policy. You should try and make your imagery appealing even for those who don’t get the idea on first viewing. That will make it more likely the audience will pick up on the clever or subtle meaning on future views. Creative visual messaging is one of the great joys of out-of-home advertising – but it needs a strong backstop to work effectively.
Credits
KFC
Agency: Courage Inc
McDonald’s
Agency: DDB
Tinder
Agency: GUT Mexico City
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