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 there’s a clear outdoor winner from one of Britain’s best loved bisc- oops, we mean cake brands. Backing that up is a delightfully clever cheese ad which makes great use of Out Of Home opportunities, and an ad that proves you can put sustainability messages across on a billboard.
JAFFA CAKES – “We’re A Cake! You Biscuit”
5.0-Star Rating (Exceptional), 1.31 Spike Rating (Strong), 88% Fast Fluency (Exceptional)
Our top Out Of Home ad this month is a funny billboard from Jaffa Cakes, playing on the fact the popular McVities treat calls itself a cake but tends to be stocked in the biscuit aisle. This is no idle distinction – cakes and biscuits are taxed differently in the UK, and in 1991 McVities got the taxman to agree that Jaffa Cakes were, in fact, a cake. To do this they famously baked a giant jaffa cake, which might be what this mouth-watering billboard is making a reference to, with a picture of a slice taken out of a big Jaffa Cake. Just to drive the point home, the billboard does the print equivalent of yelling gleefully at passers by – “WE’RE A CAKE! YOU BISCUIT”
It’s a billboard that does everything. It’s bold, it’s funny, it keeps things simple and it reminds you of a big thing about the brand. Oh, and it looks absolutely delicious too. It’s no wonder Jaffa Cakes land a coveted 5-Star score for the long-term potential of out-of-home ads, an exceptional score that only 1 in 200 Out Of Home ads reach. It also scored a strong short-term Spike score, putting it in the top 10% of Out Of Home ads for that metric. And its 88% Fast Fluency score – the percentage naming the brand with only a few seconds’ exposure – is another Exceptional result, way above the average.
BABYBEL – “Peelable”
3.5-Star Rating (Good), 1.09 Spike Rating (Modest), 76% Fast Fluency (Strong)
Cheese brand Babybel is in the fortunate position of having a set of extremely powerful distinctive assets. Its logo, of course. Its distinctive round shape. And its rich red wax coating, which people eating one peel off and separate. This wonderfully imaginative Babybel billboard manages to touch on all those assets in one go.
The logo and circular shape are referenced at the bottom right of the activation, but that’s not where the viewer’s eye is drawn. Instead, what dominates attention is the fact that a strip of the huge red display is peeling off, revealing the pale yellow of Babybel cheese un
When we look at the scores this execution gets, it’s easy to see how it’s tapped into the sense memory of viewers. The ad scores 3.5-Stars, a good long-term score which is also well above the average Star Rating for Out Of Home ads. It’s a little bit less effective in terms of the short term Spike Rating, as it’s a clever bit of work but not especially emotionally intense. But it really performs well on Brand Fluency, getting a strong score both on the overall Brand Fluency score and on Fast Fluency, the instant-recognition rating that’s vital for billboards you might drive past in seconds. Overall it’s a great example of how well imaginative 3-D advertising can work to capture a brand and what makes it distinctive.
McCAINS – “Let’s All Chip In”
3.3-Star Rating (Good), 1.12 Spike Rating (Good), 69% Fast Fluency (Good)
Finally we’ve got a great example of a digital billboard from McCains chips. McCains launched their “Let’s All Chip In” campaign on TV, online and on social media last year, with ads emphasizing the brand’s work supporting sustainable farming. Now the campaign comes to Out Of Home, with digital billboards showing shots of farming and potatoes before closing on the “Let’s All Chip In” message and packaging shots.
The ad is a fine illustration of some of the principles System1 and ITV laid out in last year’s The Greenprint report, particularly the idea that a great way to communicate sustainability initiatives is to make the customer feel they have a stake in them – just by buying the product. McCains is doing the hard work of making the deals supporting sustainable suppliers, but you the consumer can support them too by making McCains your brand. The fact that this is getting across to audiences, even on a billboard ad, is shown by the way that “sustainable farming” shows up in the top associations for the ad.
McCains get good scores here across the board – an example of a solid digital billboard with no weak elements, even if nothing is breaking effectiveness records either. It gets a 3.3-Star Rating for long term effectiveness, a good Spike Rating for short term gains, and a solidly good 69% Fast Fluency score. All of these are firmly above the average score, making this a fine case study in outdoor effectiveness.
And that’s our best examples this month. Jaffa Cakes excel and truly have the OOH Factor, but the imaginative Babybel work and a good all-round McCains ad are also well worth looking at for ideas of how to give your outdoor marketing an effectiveness boost.
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