The math is simple for full-service out-of-home media company Outfront Media: Social plus out-of-home equals social out-of-home.
Chief marketing officer Jodi Senese told Adweek the OOH sector has been undergoing a digital evolution over the past decade, adding, “A lot of the assets have turned digital, with live boards that look like giant iPads on the walls. This has created a lot of opportunity for brands and OOH companies, through interactivity with QR codes and other ways for consumers to interact.”
Outfront is bringing what it refers to as sOOH capabilities to its Outfront Prime offering, which encompasses a portfolio of premium billboard and wall sites in more than 250 high-impact locations across the U.S., in cities including Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.
Max Siegelman, the agency’s head of cultural relevance, told Adweek, “Our assets are in the center of culture.”
The company touted the combination of social media and influencer activations with OOH campaigns, citing Comscore research finding that OOH campaigns generate seven times more social posts per ad dollar, six times more social searches, 5.3 times more online purchases and five times more website visits than any other measured medium, and campaigns combining OOH and social drive up to 10 times the reach of other measured mediums.
“We’re starting to see a reversal of how it happens,” Senese told Adweek. “In the early days, a celebrity, icon or influencer would take a selfie in front of an asset, leading to social amplification. Now, social-first brands that get their life on social channels are looking at OOH to put a stake in the ground in an in-real-life display. It’s a two-way street: OOH to social, social to OOH.”
Outfront is also offering influencer marketing support including consultation, social listening and, through a partnership with influencer marketing platform Tagger, identifying influencers to work on campaigns.
“Smaller brands and direct-to-consumer brands see OOH as a jump-off point versus using social as a jump-off point,” Siegelman told Adweek. “It leads to social content for them.”
The #outfrontprime hashtag has been added to new branding on Outfront Prime locations to raise awareness of the new sOOH capabilities.
Brands that have debuted or are developing new campaigns using the sOOH capabilities include e.l.f. Cosmetics, HBO Max and (Red).
e.l.f. Cosmetics teamed up with Outfront to showcase women and underrepresented alt nonbinary creators with a focus on its elfYou Twitch channel on a big screen across from Madison Square Garden in New York.
HBO Max is set to premiere the second season of Gossip Girl Thursday (Dec. 1), and Kristen Bell, the series’ iconic narrator, can be heard in announcements on subway platforms across New York, including Grand Central and 86th Street.
An example of one of the announcements: “Greetings, followers, Gossip Girl here. They say New York is the city that never sleeps, but don’t forget, neither do I. Dig up the dirt on your favorite Constance Billard socialites with me and catch the season two premiere of Gossip Girl this Thursday, only on HBO Max. You know you love me, xoxo.”
Also, as part of the campaign, influencers will visit the stations and share their experiences with their social followers.
And (Red), an organization that fights AIDS and the injustices that enable pandemics to thrive, joined forces with Outfront on a pro-bono holiday campaign bringing festive humor to key Outfront Prime locations in Los Angeles and New York while simultaneously working with leading TikTok creators to amplify the creative and messaging.
Other noted brands that have taken part in Outfront Prime campaigns include Adidas, Airbnb, Amazon, Calvin Klein, Chanel, Dollar Shave Club, Gucci, Hulu, Netflix and Uber Eats.
The agency cited a Harris Poll finding that one out of three members of Generation Z or millennials have looked for a brand on social media after seeing an OOH ad, while recall of OOH campaigns gets a 67% lift from those age groups.
And Benchmarketing found that 91% of people in those age groups have shared a photo of an OOH ad to at least one social platform.
“Outfront Prime is already becoming a go-to media choice for the brands that are shaping our culture—for advertisers that want to start conversations and see their campaigns transcend the real world effectively into the digital one,” Senese said in a statement. “By leveraging the social power of our Prime assets, we are able to take something that has been happening organically and validated by data to social-first brands and help them find exponential value in combining OOH and social into a single marketing strategy.”
