OOH industry needs to excite creatives with new tech

Rachael Micallef
By Rachael Micallef | 16 January 2015
 

Digital campaigns like Porsche's OOH billboard need to showcase the potential of the OOH medium and get creatives excited to work with it, according to Ooh!Media's Brendon Cook.

Porsche's digital OOH campaign, which uses car recognition technology was launched last week by Ooh!Media, pairs tech and uses car recognition technology to target Porsche drivers with a tailored message.

Ooh!Media CEO Brendon Cook said the billboard was a trial run of the technology rather than a full campaign, but said the company has already had interest expressed by other brands looking to use it in a similar way.

“What were were trying to test is the accuracy of it and it's been bloody high to be honest with you,” Cook told AdNews.

“That then opens up the ability to think about how else could you creatively use this technology across a range of different campaigns, and how you could get creative to work with other stimuli.”

Cook said one of the bugbears of the industry has been the tendency for outdoor to be used as a fill-in for print ads, instead of using the medium to its potential. He said in recent years, there has been a massive improvement in the use of outdoor creative and the new technology will simply facilitate that work.

“It's up to us to show the creative community the different technology they can use and to excite them,” Cook said. “When they’re excited they come up with great ideas that are executed brilliantly and we'll see more and more tremendous campaigns coming through.”

In terms of the OOH industry of the future, Cook said he doesn't see a time where static outdoor is removed from use given “the fact that the static billboard works.”

“The key to remember is it needs to be the right location that works for a digital billboard: it's not possible to have every billboard digitised for a whole range of driver safety reasons,” Cook said.

“I think what we'll see across all digital is that clients will be a using a combination of the two: static has its strength of a single proposition point and digital offers the flexibility to multiple interaction responses.”

The accuracy of Porsche's digital OOH campaign was put through its paces by Victorian Porsche club drivers, which includes a number of Porsche models spanning more than five decades.

Eight members of the car club did drive-bys in two groups of four along the billboard in Melbourne's Airport Drive to test the billboards, which contains software programmed with images of Porsche models, in order to identify the cars.

The technology correctly identified all the cars, including a 1965 911 model: one of only 1800 made in the world.

“It was a tremendous response from the tech side of it,” Cook said. “The whole OOH industry can benefit from this type of technology.”

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