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While I haven’t seen him in a while, my buddy Marc Belcourt over at BMW is doing some great things with the new Z4 and his outdoor promotions and is really making the case for smart outdoor executions and how SMS can help to prove out some of the effectiveness.

While more of a OOH Merchandiser than “ads”, BMW used SMS and a couple of 40″ screens to promote their test drive program.

The conversion rate from those who text to those who actually FULLY REGISTER is an astounding 12.5% through mobile.  That figure doesn’t even include those who go online on their own or just show up at the dealer based on the promotion.

This, added to Porsche’s SMS program last year that drove 22% of the total campaign has got to have the auto industry talking.

Obviously, when converting this into a larger true “campaign” that has scale, you will see these numbers go down (it’s just way too expensive to put Z4s in front of every luxury hotel ) and if you don’t have a car that’s as sexy to promote as Marc’s Z4 you’ll probably see it go down as well but this does prove out that using SMS in OOH with an effective consumer value prop DELIVERS.

Hats off to you Mark and we should grab a beer soon and chat about doing this targeted in ALL DIGITAL!

The original article can be found here

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USA Today has a nice piece on the Cannes advertising festival.  I was invited to this last year but had a hard time justifying the $5000 to investors for a week in Sunny South of France. For some reason they wouldn’t let me pass it off as work

Whereas advertising awards used to be really easy at Cannes, consisting of…um…just TV creative, today’s advertising doesn’t look quite the same as it did in days of yore. As the article states:

The blurring of lines for what’s an ad is obvious in the competition for Lion awards at the 56th International Advertising Festival this week. Entries in the 11 ad categories range from faux ads and products to marketing that combines a live event, social networking, film and outdoor.

Did you read that right?  Yes, that said OUTDOOR and SOCIAL NETWORKING.

Integrated programs that combine the effects of a multiplatform and multi-touchpoint campaign are what’s winning awards these days and what marketers feel is hot and worthy of conversation – NOT TV (well…it depends what agency you work for and how stuck on living in the past they are)

Where awards get won, creatives usually follow and I’ll be looking forward to seeing the Cannes results and entries over the coming years.  Maybe I’ll even be allowed to attend 

Worth the quickie read and exploring some of the submissions

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Andrew Hampp released his Art of Outdoor last week for those who didn’t see it.  Great pub on his part (well done Andrew)

Andrew’s/Ad Age’s Art of Outdoor can be found here.

While the focus is in no way really digital for the Art of Outdoor, Jonah Bloom did a follow up piece and made some great observations, many of which (ahem) have been covered in these pages over the last year or so (cmon…it’s good for the ego every once in a while ).

While it’s nice to see people start to take notice of things in our space, it always has a heck of a lot more impact when it shows up in a respected rag like Ad Age.

Some of the comments I like (although you should read the whole thing:

Yet, for all this change, outdoor’s biggest asset today may be that as audiences on every other channel are split into ever decreasing fragments, it can still operate on a mass, broadcast level.

so today’s out-of-home efforts are increasingly often integral parts of bigger digital campaigns. Indeed, it might seem somewhat odd to an industry outsider who was unfamiliar with the latest phenomena — such as brands emblazoning billboards with just their Twitter addresses — to note that outdoor is enjoying a renaissance right now, driven, at least in part, by digital shops. Creatives are clearly enjoying the ability to link the mass-market power of a poster to the personal power of the internet.

Even with this digitization and integration of the medium, simplicity remains the essence of great outdoor — which is why it is often cited as such a pure test of a creative’s skill. Can you distill the essence of the sales or brand message into a single, instantly understandable, affecting image? (The answer, in the case of so many of the campaigns within these pages, was “yes.” What could be simpler than TBWA’s “The world’s thinnest notebook,” for the Macbook Air, which was accompanied by a side-on shot of the product, or BBDO’s “Get a world view. Read The Economist,” accompanied by an ostrich’s head emerging from the sand?)

While it’s great to see folks take notice of social and mobile in Outdoor applications, it’s even nicer to see someone talk about the renaissance of outdoor as a medium, especially as they pull in Digital into the mix and credit creativity and challenge coming to the creatives who so often pooh-pooh Outdoor and especially Digital OOH in their efforts.

As I said a while ago, Digital OOH let’s creatives be creative again and I look forward to more folks in that arena taking a closer look at the space and what they can do with it.

Great article Jonah!  And thanks for noticing!

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I’ll start this post with a comment: “The wrong measurement solution or tactic can kill mediums”.

I’ve had this conversation with many after recent announcements have come out on the mobile marketing front. I’m very cautious when talking about mobile and where it will go and how we need to be cautious in its introduction into the culture and execution of Digital OOH’s success.

Case in point? Look at the Internet.  While Internet advertising has grown by leaps and bounds and makes lots of people very rich, the fact of the matter is, because it went to a “success is a click-through” model (aka direct response) as fast as it did, it leaves 100s of millions of dollars on the table as click throughs rarely actually lead to the execution of a “sale” that is trackable.  As today’s Ad Age article from Hernan Lopez details on a statement from Randall Rothenberg:

Randall Rothenberg, CEO of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, has called for a “creative renaissance” on the internet, which he said has been “an unthinking hostage to a direct-marketing culture and tradition that devalues creativity and its long-term effect on brands.”

Read more

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The lineup keeps shaping up well with new fun toys augmenting Digital OOH capabilities.  I don’t think we’ve even seen the begining of what can and will be done with our medium.

In the latest incarnation, CBS in the UK is dropping in WiFi based interactivity via iPhone to control and interact with elements on the screens.  This could be the start of some seriously cool apps and could get some of the facebook/iPhone dev crew thinking WAY beyond the small worlds they currently have to exist in.

More can be found here: http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7015400336

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About time!

Seems people are getting smart about how to start to use Twitter feeds in ads, per my comment last time on the Land Rover ads – just one step further.  via @AdRants on twitter, Volvo has started to embed twitter comments and feeds in their YouTube ads.

Why more people don’t do this in Digital OOH I just don’t know.  There are IP connected screens that can extend social and mobile media into the real world.

Target, engage, repeat…just keep saying it to yourself

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Kudos to the fine folks at Captivate, Land Rover and Y&R/Mediaedge:cia

I’ve been harping on now about (Stephen Randall’s) New Media Triad for a while.  Trying to explain to people that with Digital OOH’s IP connected screens and social media’s crazy speed and connectedness that it’s about time that creative agencies and media agencies start learning how the hell to INTEGRATE Digital OOH into a broader spectrum program that ties the various aspects of all of this “connectedness” together using Digital OOH as a “promotion base”, attract people with things like Twitter keywords and drive them to various web or social properties for engagement and involvement.

Let me tell you, it has not always been an easy sell – especially for those who don’t understand how easily all of these things connect and can be launched/integrated.

So I’m happy to give kudos to the folks at Land Rover, who I assume launched this program through their creative/media agencies Y&R & MediaEdge here in New York, promoting Land Rover’s semi-private retail launch event here in NY, promoting it on Captivate screens.

General idea?  Use Captivate screens, promoting the SUVs with sexy media with a Twitter keyword of #lrny.  This keyword allows you to tweet news to a searchable twitter tag (above) that let’s you comment on the event.  You can even use twitpic to post photos while there.

And all the while you get folks twittering about the event and vehicles here:

Now all they have to do to make me happy is integrate those tweets back into the ads to further engage consumers!

Well done guys!  Creative maturity starts to hit the DOOH scene!

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In a marked departure from their “traditional” business of non-traditional (aka Digital), Razorfish has jumped into traditional advertising by doing their first TV Spot during the “Celebrity Apprentice” for All-Laundry.com.

The AdWeek post can be found here

The work is more evidence that the lines between digital and traditional shops are blurring. Just as traditional agencies are expanding their digital capabilities, interactive shops that until a few years ago mostly built Web sites and banners are muscling into turf that was formerly the preserve of general agencies. Digital video is a key battleground. Traditional shops have laid claim to it as their preserve while digital specialists like AKQA, R/GA and Razorfish create much of it themselves.

This is a follow up post to my spot on DOOH finding another home in the Digital agencies because they don’t look at it in such silos and are proving to the market that they look at things (campaigns and media purchases) in a much more holistic manner than many of the traditional shops have been doing with the emergence of all of the new-fangled channels” that we’re all forced to deal with.

In further evidence of this starting to affect traditional shops, I’m sure many have seen JWT closed their Chicago office.  The could never adapt after losing their key clients. Those who can’t adapt to the new realities of the media business are suffering.

As I mentioned, DOOH may be just as attractive given its IP connected nature and ability to tap into social and mobile programs already on the go inside the Digital agency walls

UPDATEW: Ouch!  Apparently AdRants didn’t like this little approach

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In case anyone is interested in attending the presentation, the ARF (Advertising Research Foundation) is holding their re:Think conference and expo next week.

For those on the agency side of the business, Graeme Spicer is speaking about the new realities of the Digital Path to Purchase on March 31st.  This isn’t an ADCENTRICITY event (so I’m allowed to post it here ), it’s focused on research and innovating using digital touchpoints to engage the consumer throughout the purchase path.

It should be good (and I’m not just saying that)

Details:

LIVE PRESENTATION >> 2009 re:think, The ARF 55th Annual Conference

March 31, 2009, New York, NY

THE DIGITAL PATH TO PURCHASE

Shopper marketing at the point-of-purchase and along the path-to-purchase is going digital. Digital Out-of-Home media is now more than ever a critical element of a 360 degree marketing mix. Join ADCENTRICITY, North America’s foremost Digital Out-of-Home media strategy firm for a complete learning session. We will be exploring the trends, effects and measurement landscape of digital Out-of-Home advertising in North America. RSVP to chelsey@adcentricity.com to receive a VIP presentation package prior to the event.

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I’m here at the iMedia conference in Florida,, mingling with some elite folks in the advertising/media business and I can tell you, Brad and the gang from iMedia have done a good job throwing together a crew that at least talks the game in terms of their true interest in using the social, mobile, online video, digital ooh and other “emerging media”.

Beyond the location (Coconut Point) being fantastic, the quality of people here has so far been great and there is a genuine interest in figuring out and using the new tools at hand.  Brands are sick and tired of what they did last year and want to know what’s out there and how they can take advantage of it – they also have 1.) Less money 2.) Need better ways to reach the same amount of people 3.) Want to take risks without risking their jobs. I’ve blogged about the malaise between brand needs and agency wants in the past and it has shown up here again – from the brand side:  take risks or be bypassed and become irrelevant because they will find ways to do it….

“we want to know and try this new stuff!”

Up until now, Digital OOH hasn’t had many friends in with the interactive/digital crew; we’ve been too confusing, too difficult, not speaking the same language, we don’t measure on a click-through basis, etc.  All of these things have created a barrier between the DOOH business (which, if you think about it, is the physical (real-world) manifestation of the Internet – IP connected screens with connectivity, content and advertising that have the ability to be activated by various other tools – such as mobile.

Up until recently, any level of significant engagement or buying by the media business has come primarily from a transactional basis from the out-of-home groups.

Ah – but are things changing? iMedia has, up until now, been focused on pure digital channels such as web, seo, sem, display ads, social and mobile media.  It is just recently that they developed an interest in DOOH and this interest spurred a conversation between myself and Brad, which in turn resulted in me being asked to speak and present a case study, with Samsung, at this conference. Which is very trying indeed.  BTW, the Samsung results were/are amazing and will be coming out from us on our facebook page later

The amount of calls we have received from the digital agencies recently has been quite fascinating. Many have found out that it is IP connected and can be activated via mobile so feel it has a better home in the Digital planning section to be integrated into larger digital programs and initiatives

Yesterday, at my presentation, the heads of Kraft’s emerging media division and the heads of Doner’s emerging media division (and other senior folks) were both present and very active in discussions afterwords.  A few other organizations have also indicated that they would like Digital to be a function of their larger digital initiatives as much of their innovation budgets are focused in that area already

Is a little political war about to start in terms of where DOOH will eventually sit?  If you remember, Internet advertising used to be sold by the Print planners and buyers at agencies 12+ years ago

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