Unlocking the Power of OOH: There Is No Creative Effectiveness without Media Effectiveness

“As a creative-minded professional, I acknowledge that 'creative effectiveness' alone is only half the battle for a truly successful campaign. To accurately assess the impact of creative on an out-of-home (OOH) campaign, it must be measured against the goals outlined in the brief. All data and learnings are fed back to the client but then utilised to create continual learnings for the business and creative best practice in OOH. 

While the creative aspect of the campaign may have accomplished its specific objectives, evaluating its true effectiveness requires considering the impact of the media used. It's time to break away from the separation of these components and adopt a more integrated approach: assessing advertising effectiveness. 

To achieve this, let's explore ingenious ways to consolidate research methodologies, offering a comprehensive view of successful advertising campaigns. One source of inspiration, and worth reading more is James Hurman's illuminating discovery on 'Creative Commitment' within 'The Effectiveness Code.' This concept emphasises evaluating a campaign's effectiveness based on the brand's commitment to its placements, providing valuable insights into the overall impact.

The frameworks developed by WARC and Cannes Lions on the creative effectiveness ladder have been particularly inspiring, providing our industry with a means to understand how creativity can drive specific marketing outcomes. Evaluating an ad's effectiveness can be achieved by aligning it with the strengths of OOH media, such as fame, reach, engagement and action, which enables us to track its potential impact. 

However, I also stress the importance of exercising caution and encouraging clients to consider not just the creative content but also the delivery timing, method, and location. This aspect is pivotal in establishing a strong link between creative efforts and the media's ability to reach the intended audiences. For me, the key to genuine success lies in the seamless collaboration of both creative and media elements.

The OOH media landscape has witnessed an influx of new players adopting programmatic approaches. However, this has introduced significant risks to OOH media effectiveness, and can-do long-term damage to our industry due to a lack of expertise in the OOH space. Many of these players are applying tools and technologies designed for other media, treating digital OOH media simply as digital displays rather than understanding them as environmental formats with dynamic audiences that change based on time, day, weather, and conditions. 

At Grand Visual, we have the advantage of collaborating closely with our Talon family, enabling us to be deeply involved in crafting media plans from a creative perspective. By engaging early in the process, we develop creative messaging based on formats, environments, and adaptive/ reactive creative strategies that adjust according to shifting audience behaviour, conditions, and insights. This collaborative approach ensures that our campaigns are truly effective and impactful.” - Dan Dawson, chief creative officer, Grand Visual

“Creative and media effectiveness are completely intertwined and those who ensure creative and media effectiveness are spoken in the same breath will be most successful. 

For me, creative effectiveness is about capturing attention, reaching the right audience at the right time and in the right mindset. Media effectiveness evaluates a campaign strategy in achieving the overall objective. 

OOH is a distinct medium with a low dwell time. This is why creative effectiveness is so important for our channel. As data and technology are increasingly more pivotal in advertising, creative effectiveness becomes more important than ever and should be placed at the core of every planning strategy. Creative effectiveness lies at the heart of advertising effectiveness and a successful creative not only cuts through competitor clutter it is far more engaging and as a result is remembered for longer.

Media effectiveness is typically carried out at the end of the campaign to understand ROI, contribution to brand awareness and message take out, whereas creative effectiveness is typically evaluated at the beginning of the campaign to ensure its fit for purpose. Thus, allowing for the true evaluation of media effectiveness.

Talon recently carried out a study analysing both creative effectiveness data and media effectiveness data (e.g. spend/frequency) to understand the factors having the largest impact on campaign effectiveness. Results showed higher levels of frequency of exposure drove stronger uplifts across unaided awareness however analysing creative performance vs frequency – as frequency increases we saw positive creative responses decline - indicating creative fatigue. 

Using smart analysis allows us to optimise our campaigns to ensure the most effective campaign is delivered. Analysis from this project also showed that creative contributes one of the biggest impacts on campaign performance - the stronger the emotional response to a creative, the greater uplifts across the whole brand funnel. Campaigns with strong creative effectiveness drive 5.8x stronger uplifts in brand consideration and are nearly 3x more effective at driving purchase intent compared to low performing creatives. This demonstrates how both creative and media effectiveness should be looked at in unison. 

Working with an OOH partner who specialises in both creative and media effectiveness ensures constant learnings which inform, and in turn, are implemented to boost creative effectiveness. Creative performance is also a key metric and one that is prioritised at Talon, utilising eye tracking technology we understand how much attention is given to certain elements of the creative which is used to enhance creative. Talon have conducted over 500 creative studies which enables the creation of benchmarks, to provide context to campaign results. So partnering with the right media partner who focuses on effectiveness and embraces a learning culture allows access to this data to inform and improve creativity.” - Emily Alcorn, head of effectiveness, Talon

“To boost creative effectiveness, it is of utmost importance to find the right partners who specialise in their respective fields. Both creative and media aspects are vital for advertising effectiveness. Your media partner will play a crucial role in identifying target audiences, understanding their movements, cultural insights, geography, and media opportunities. Meanwhile, your creative production partner will help shape your ideas into meaningful conversations that are tailored to the right time, location, audience, and mindset. The two must work symbiotically during the planning process and delivery.” - Dan and Emily