Our three Out Of Home ads this month embrace the playful side of static advertising with work that does what only outdoor advertising can – use humour and surrealism to make life (and the environment around you) more interesting. It’s three examples of visual jokes and trickery from Australia, the US and Brazil, all aiming to surprise the viewer as well as entertain them.
For pure surprise, we’ll start with the US and an ad by ChatGPT showing off its image generation skills. There’s a famous story from the dawn of cinema about an audience becoming terrified at film of a train coming towards them, fearing it would break out of the screen. ChatGPT are trying a similar kind of optical illusion, with an image blending into a brick wall, showing a tunnel in the wall and a subway train lurking ominously within. “Reimagined with ChatGPT images” runs the copy.
“It caught me off guard” was one of the consumer responses, and the ad scores 27% Surprise against the baseline 15% on Test Your Ad. Surprise is a positive emotion for advertisers – it means the ad is grabbing attention and making an impression. Whether or not you like AI – and some of our respondents don’t – ChatGPT is taking the opportunity to show off the realism and potential of its visual capabilities. As that Surprise score shows, it’s an unexpected and intriguing approach.
In Australia we find another ad that makes innovative and clever use of the physical space of outdoor advertising, this time for Uber Eats. Passers-by are greeted with what looks like a standard fast food poster for McDonalds, but it’s surrounded by the familiar green Uber Eats bag. Uber Eats is bagging up ads just like it bags up the food it delivers.
It’s a really creative approach and it’s no wonder that the ad very quickly grabs attention and drives brand recognition. Playing with the physical presence of an ad like this makes an outdoor execution immediately stand out and draws surprise as well as happiness. In this case Uber are also doing exceptional branding, with a 95% Brand Fluency score on Test Your Ad and also an 88% Fast Fluency. Both of these are top-tier Fluency scores – Uber’s eye-catching execution is meaning people pick up on the branding within a second or two of seeing the ad. The great branding also drives an exceptional Spike Rating – predicting a major sales boost for Uber from the campaign too.
Finally it’s off to Brazil where Café Pilão has an ad which uses visual humour to surprise and please its audience. The cheeky ad shows a yawning barber who has momentarily switched off. But his clippers haven’t, and the shocked customer now has a big shaved stripe through his hair. What’s going on? The caption explains it – the barber has been up all night complaining about a World Cup referee, and now his customers are paying the price. Much better to start your day with a coffee from Café Pilão, “the official sponsor of the day after”.
It’s great to see an ad using visual humour with such confidence, and leaving the audience to join the dots and link the joke to the brand. On Test Your Ad, a huge 97% Fluency tells us that viewers are indeed making that link. Surprise is higher than average and “coffee” is the top association. The mention of sponsorship and the referee lets the brand tap into World Cup fever in Brazil but means the ad can stay relevant after the tournament too as the regular football season gets underway.
With outdoor advertising, strong branding and attention-grabbing visuals are key. But strong branding doesn’t have to mean uncreative or straightforward advertising. What Café Pilão and Uber Eats are showing is that you can get excellent branding results without sacrificing innovation or humour, and ChatGPT shows how surprise can work in your favor too.
Credits
ChatGPT | Open AI
Café Pilão | BETC HAVAS
Uber Eats | Special | EssenceMediacom | JCDecaux
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