OOH Of the Month —OOH FACTOR FEBRUARY/MARCH
We just didn’t see work that excelled enough to justify our spotlight.
Welcome to System1 and JCDecaux UK’s OOH Of The Month!
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 has been predicting advertising effectiveness for 15 years. And we also look at Fast Fluency – how much of the audience recognize 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.
This month we are taking a break from the routine and reporting a short fall on excellence while sharing our insights on System1s Testing ratings.
OOH FACTOR FEBRUARY/MARCH
Out Of Home advertising is hard to get right. In System1’s Test Your Ad Out Of Home database the average Star Rating (our long-term predictor) for US Outdoor Images is only 1.9-Stars. That’s well below the equivalent for TV ads. The average for Spike Rating (short-term sales predictor) is also low.
So while we want to bring you exceptional ads with the OOH Factor every month, there are some months where simply nothing fits the bill. And February 2026 is one of them. We just didn’t see work that excelled enough to justify our spotlight.
We just didn’t see work that excelled enough to justify our spotlight.
That’s not a sign of any wider malaise. Like we say, Out Of Home advertising is difficult. And with tentpole events like the Super Bowl and the Winter Olympics eating budgets and attention, it’s hardly surprising that no outdoor ads made a big impact last month. But it gives us a great opportunity to take a step back and ask why Out Of Home advertising is so tricky, and what chances brands might not be taking in this or any other month.
Two key factors in any advertising are attention and emotion, and outdoor advertising has unique problems in both areas. Audiences have hardly any time to take in ads and the ads have a limited canvas to work with while competing with the entire outdoor environment. That means lower attention and worse emotional response – unless you get it right.
Many ads don’t. And they often fail one of the most basic tests of all – people don’t know who the ad is for. None of the ads we looked at last month rose above 76% Brand Fluency – the level of brand recognition an ad commands. That means at least a 24% loss of memorability and attention.
So how can brands avoid these problems? Last year, in partnership with JCDeceaux, we published Double Take, our playbook for truly effective Out Of Home advertising. We analysed our Test Your Ad database and JCDeceaux’s effectiveness data to connect our testing with real world business outcomes, and came away with five creative behaviours that separate the forgettable and the unforgettable.
Be Realistic: How long does an OOH ad have to make an impact? Two seconds. You have two seconds to communicate brand and message and create that all-important emotional response. That means you have to be realistic about what the audience can take in. Use simple visuals, minimal copy, strong branding, and clarity ahead of cleverness.
Be Distinctive: Even when you keep it simple, you’ve got to stand out to be recognised. To draw attention in a busy environment, and make sure the audience know who you are, you need bold colours, big products and your best assets. Our Double Take research uncovered that brand characters and product shapes are the most likely assets to drive recognition, with celebrities among the least.
Be Consistent: Something OOH advertising does have in common with TV – consistency pays. Your brand’s outdoor work can’t be separate from everything else you do. The creative platform, campaign and assets should be consistent – it’s just the execution that needs that special OOH approach. For example, Specsavers’ famous slogan “Should Have Gone To Specsavers” has had years of TV build up. So the brand could simply print it upside down on a poster and get brand recognition and a big laugh.
Don’t Be Dull: You’ve been realistic, distinctive and consistent and you have your audience’s recognition and attention. Now you have to entertain them and make them feel something. Dullness is the big opportunity cost of advertising. An outdoor ad which gets 3-Stars or more on Test Your Ad delivers double the commercial impact. But the only way to get that score is to avoid a neutral response.
Even with just 2 seconds to play with, some of the classic drivers of positive emotion are yours to use. Pictures of human joy and togetherness. Strong characters. Cultural references. And images that surprise as well as delight.
Bend The Rules: Outdoor advertising is a medium with many constraints. We don’t advise breaking those rules – get too clever with an OOH ad and people will pass it by. But creativity involves bending the rules a little, and being playful with your Outdoor work. Got a super-strong asset? Do what Kelloggs or McDonalds do, and let a part of it stand in for the whole. Keep your copy short, but make the audience laugh with a cultural reference or a pun. And even break the boundaries of the poster, if it means you can be more entertaining.
Outdoor advertising doesn’t get low test scores because it’s bad. It’s because the OOH medium is tough to use well. You have to respect its limits if you want to work effectively within them. Do that, and profit will follow. And we’ll be back in March with some new ads which do have that OOH Factor.
- Advertisement -
