With the return of outdoor audiences, ad of domestic and overseas brands has gradually become normal. We see that compared with the caution of domestic brands in overseas advertising, overseas brands are more grounded and bolder in terms of outdoor strategy and creativity based on local understanding, and even use outdoor as a key communication channel to communicate with consumers. 

Thereby, for brands that want to ad overseas, if they want to influence the local area and make the brand more deeply rooted in the people, it is not only to create a temporary hot spot, but it is necessary to do as locals do, learn the actual practices of local and international brands. This article selects some recent excellent overseas OOH cases for your reference. I hope to see more brands stand on the shoulders of their predecessors during festivals or regular campaigns, and have more exciting cases to increase overseas OOH campaigns to a higher level.

Try different OOH formats

When domestic brands choose overseas media, they generally give priority to landmarks for short-term campaigns for subsequent publicity, such as  London's Leicester Square, New York Times Square, and Tokyo Shibuya. Task-based campaigns rely on the aura of the media itself to bring attention to the traffic, but conventional landmark campaigns are becoming more and more common. If you want to break the circle and attract more people’s attention, you need to cooperate with creativity and activities, or try different media formats.

For example, Lipton recently chose to use London, Sydney, Brussels, Amsterdam and other places to do outdoor landmark projection on the International Peace Day. If you just do regular ad on the large screen of landmarks, because the content is mainly won by copywriting, it may not be able to achieve such a sensational effect as projection. After all, locals are blind to sights and landmarks, and only distinctive advertising format can attract their attention. 

Choose places where locals gather

Landmarks often cover both international and local people. If you want to go deep into the local area, brands may wish to choose places where local people are concentrated, such as transportation hubs, commercial centers, etc., where the local target population is, choose the best media format to interact with them.

For brands with limited budgets, you can refer to Costa Rica's approach. In order to attract Londoners to travel there, Costa Rica posted the train station where the locals gather as a tropical rainforest. From a passenger's point of view, the visual impact and immersive experience it brings is unmatched by the regular campaigns of other places. , The advantages of OOH are fully reflected here.

If the budget is sufficient, you can consider Vodafone's approach. Vodafone promoted 5G and set off a red brand storm in London using OOH! Taking the bus as the mobile brand symbol, connecting large and small screens to achieve networked high-density communication between the main traffic hubs, what a sight for the public to see this dazzling red!

Use locals as spokesperson

Brands ad overseas, after selecting suitable areas and local media.  If local people can be used to endorse products and their own interests,  consumers and users can speak for themselves, that is a higher level of OOH communication.

Apple and Twitter have always been experienced players in this area. They don’t need self-promotion, they just quote users’ relevant photos or messages, or even they don't need innovative media formats. Simple billboards can be combined with hot spots to amplify the effect of communication. Twitter recently continued to use this trick outdoors, citing users to persuade people to wear masks, turning buildings, boats and even the ground everywhere into their content carriers.

All in all, from the choice of region, media to content, each step requires professional work around the target population. As long as you have done your homework on these, you can actually understand consumers better than other brands. It is not difficult for brands to make cases like these mentioned above.

At present, in addition to large brands with local branches or partners, they have done a good job in this regard, and other domestic brands can generally do more in the field of overseas outdoor advertising. Everyone who has ideas can join us, making overseas OOH campaigns more creative with the same budget.

BNR Communication pursues the spirit of Zhang Qian and Zheng He's diplomatic expansion and adventure exploration, focusing on helping brands achieve global OOH communication and advertising, improving the efficiency and professional standards of brand's global outdoor advertising.

In 2020, global outdoor experienced unprecedented crisis and opportunity.  We found data played an increasingly important role in the process of outdoor campaigns. So, what is the application of data in outdoor advertising this year? What are the implications for outdoor development next year? In response to these questions, we will give you some answers through this article.

Data continues to track the flow of audiences 

Since the outbreak of the epidemic in the first half of 2020, major overseas markets have begun to monitor the travel of outdoor audiences, from industry associations such as the Australian Outdoor Media Association (OMA), the British Outdoor Advertising Organization (OutSmart), the Canadian Outdoor Marketing and Measurement Bureau (COMMB), to Major media companies such as JCDecaux, Pattison, Clear Channel Outdoor (Figure 1 below), and agencies such as Kinetic, Posterscope, etc., as well as third-party research institutions such as Geopath (Figure 2 below), MOVE, etc., updated outdoor audience travel data weekly even daily to deliver positive messages to the market.

It is precisely under the guidance of this information that clients can more objectively understand the actual situation, and make correct outdoor advertising decisions under the background that the flow of people affected by the epidemic has decreased but has not been returned to zero, so that the brand can still make a decision even when a crisis occurs, having continuous communication with consumers. This allows brands to achieve higher return on investment than ever before under the same or even lower than usual budget conditions. For example, a food brand (see the picture below) insisted on advertising outdoors during the epidemic, and the copy used was very humorous, "Maybe we should do a TV commercial", "This is an advertisement that can only be seen by runners and pigeons", etc. According to a centralized survey conducted by the British outdoor advertising industry on 65 brands that advertised outdoors during the epidemic, it was found that customers’ advertising recall of these brands has increased by an average of 51% compared to usual, and their purchase intention has also increased by 16%.  Brands that have taken the right actions based on effective information will gain more than other brands.

Data support optimization and Planning of outdoor media

In addition to obtaining macro-level market recovery information through the above audience travel reports, brands can now use richer and diverse user data to optimize outdoor campaigns,  media companies can use this data to adjust their media development strategies.

Brands are increasingly using user location and behavior data to guide digital or traditional outdoor advertising this year. For example, American political advertisements will choose advertising spaces according to different groups of people to express differentiated appeals (Figure 1 below). McDonald’ll decide whether to play coffee advertisements (Figure 2 below), and S’well selects the optimal advertising location based on user location data (Figure 3 below), etc., all of these are inseparable from the user’s real-time or accumulated data application.

It is becoming more and more common for media to adjust assets based on changes in audience and revenue data. For example, XTD Australia acquired oOh! Media’s health media network, and Clear Channel Outdoor replaced JCDecaux as New York Airport media (as shown below, clear Channel will use this to create a new digital airport) operators.Changes in audiences have caused a short-term sharp decrease in advertising revenue, which has caused some companies to abandon their cars to survive. On the other hand, those have ample cash flow can take a long-term view and actively deploy and invest in scenarios where there will be more audience/traffic flows in the future.

Data drives OOH automation 

This year we also saw an obvious phenomenon, that is, under the dual drive of digitization and datification, outdoor programmatic trading platforms, especially the integration of digital outdoor and mobile advertising based on location data, have developed rapidly overseas, injecting new ideas into outdoor Development momentum. The world’s major media owners or resource parties include JCDecaux, Clear Channel Outdoor, Pattison, etc., to integrate SSP with mobile and digital outdoor DSPs to sell inventory, the epidemic is to some extent ripening the overseas programmatic outdoor  ecology and helping it integrate into the larger digital advertising ecology. For brands and agencies, we believe that the opportunities will outweigh the challenges.

To illustrate with actual cases. Recently, one agency cooperated with Ocean Outdoor and the European digital outdoor and mobile media programmatic buying platform Sage+Archer to make a campaign for the Dutch Flower Association on digital outdoor large screens and user mobile phone screens in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Germany. Transnational and multi-screen launches (pictured below) accurately and repeatedly reach the target population of 25-40 years old. It is important for the brand to dare to innovate, but the role of the agency is still indispensable in this case. It is a general trend for brands to trigger outdoor advertising based on the user’s background and behavior, location data, specific scenes, weather and other factors. The combination of outdoor and mobile makes communication even more powerful.  Professional agents who understand digital creativity and advertising will stand out.

When we return to the essence of media,  media leaving the audience equals zero. Therefore, from a rational point of view, choosing the media means choosing the people behind the media. It is these people and the data behind them that determine the value of the media, and determine why customers want to buy a certain media, how much and how long the media, etc. . Guided by this logic, non-budget without data has gradually formed a consensus among overseas media, especially outdoor campaigns. The so-called programmatic transaction is nothing more than a tool to shorten the distance between data and delivery. 

Since the overseas market already has these available data and data-based tools as mentioned above, if domestic brands can synchronize with them in data-based thinking, it can be said to be truly in line with international standards. Similarly, when the brand ads overseas in the new year, it may cooperate with professional agencies to try more to increase the effect of communication.

Data is like a lamp in the night. For those who make good use of data, no matter what the environment is, they can use it to illuminate the road ahead.  In 2021, I sincerely wish everyone a bright future and brilliant performance under the light of data.

BNR Communication pursues the spirit of Zhang Qian and Zheng He's diplomatic expansion and adventure exploration, focusing on helping brands achieve global outdoor communication and advertising,  improving the efficiency and professional standards of brand'S global outdoor advertising.

Recently, in an online forum hosted by the Latin American Outdoor Advertising Association, the founder of S4 Capital, former WPP founder Sir Martin Sorrell, and the chairman of the World Outdoor Advertising Organization Tom Goddard discussed the future of outdoor together. In addition to talking about the epidemic is accelerating the transformation of outdoor digitization, Martin is quite optimistic about the development prospects of outdoor in 2021. He even predicted that the vaccine will be released before the second quarter, accompanied by the Tokyo Olympics and other global events. The outdoor market will be bullish.

So, is it true that the outdoors, as Martin said, will usher in a full recovery in 2021 and head towards a bull market? Is it a rare opportunity for brands to buy now?

"Normalization" of outdoor life under the normalization of epidemic prevention and control

Whether the outdoors fully recovers depends first on whether the life of urban residents is normalized. At present, the global anti-epidemic has become normal. Although the European and American regions have rebounded to varying degrees, different countries have gradually figured out their own prevention and control models, and overall they are still in a state of overall control. Even Melbourne, where there had been a second outbreak before, is now gradually unblocking. In this context, urban residents have actually entered a new normal of symbiosis with the epidemic. The restaurant dining scene in the following picture is another sense of "normalization" of outdoor life.

This kind of "normalized" life has less impact on the outdoors than staying at home in the first half of the year. And from the point of view, everyone is more active than the first half of the year. According to the recent survey of 2500 international passengers by JCDecaux and m1nd-set, 79% of them are willing to fly international flights in the next six months. Outdoors are all positive signals.

Brands follow the audience to resume outdoor advertising

It is precisely with the return of outdoor audiences to varying degrees that brand ad has also begun to return. Judging from the cases of these brands in the second half of the year, it has been difficult to find any epidemic-related information. We can call this the normalization of brand ads. The outdoor campaign of green and black chocolate as shown in the figure below directly expresses the product quality simply and rudely, conveying the most core brand message to consumers.

I have to mention here the outdoor communication of a Chinese fast fashion e-commerce brand Shein this year. Since the first wave of epidemics in Europe and the United States was initially unblocked in the first half of the year, it has seen a large number of outdoor advertisements and welcomed the return of the audience with stylish and beautiful pictures. Shein bucked the trend and aggressively ad in the city, the effect was obvious. So far, Shein's total downloads have reached 229.4 million, while H&M and Zara have downloaded 123.5 million and 90.6 million, respectively. This is the largest Chinese black horse that the global fashion industry has seen this year!

Media companies bottomed out

The return of the audience and  brand is of course a good thing, but for overseas media owners and agencies, they are not blindly waiting for the return of the audience and the brand, but are practicing their internal skills. Under the influence of the epidemic, on the one hand, they accelerated their digitalization to meet the more flexible and immediate needs of customers, and on the other hand, they used more creative and data-driven content to spread.

The positive work in the first half of the year brought a good start to the second half of the year. It can be directly seen from the performance that major media companies such as Clear Channel Outdoor lost 60% of their global revenue from the first half to the third quarter, 30%.

Regardless of whether the epidemic will end in the first half of 2021, as Sir Martin predicted, the overall situation is still under control. All the industry has to do is to improve its internal strength, otherwise the recovery is nothing but someone else’s business. From a brand point of view, strategic action is more important than watching the trend. A company like Shein with a determined overseas expansion strategy is enough to be proud of all the current uncertainties. 

It is precisely because of the uncertainty  in the market that it is the best time for everyone to buy ad overseas. Among them, there are some high-quality media, such as Heathrow Airport’s newly developed charging zone media and Paris Airport HSBC’s bridge media  (refer to the picture above). These are propaganda highlands that can and should be occupied. The so-called opportunity, the window period is not long, the quickest ones will go first.

I look forward to more Chinese brands taking the epidemic as an opportunity to bravely run a new round of overseas expansion!

BNR Communication pursues the spirit of Zhang Qian and Zheng He's diplomatic expansion and adventure exploration, focusing on helping brands achieve global outdoor communication and advertising, improving the efficiency and professional standards of brand global outdoor advertising.

When companies do outdoor campaigns in China, they will first understand and analyze the market, media, and consumers, which we think it should be. So, when we go overseas to make investment, shouldn't we be more so due to the differences between countries.

The overseas ad is the same as the domestic one. It is a series of processes that apply specialized tools to systematically operate on the basis of understanding the market, including the research and understanding of different markets and media from the early stage, and then the formulation of media strategies. In the end, the selection of regions and specific media, the execution and monitoring of the campaign, etc., are not accomplished overnight.

Therefore, in order to ensure the effectiveness of overseas advertising, it is necessary for us to follow similar or even stricter steps and procedures for domestic campaigns.

Understand the characteristics of the market and media

Prior to overseas campaign, only when companies have a comprehensive understanding of overseas markets, consumers, and media, can they formulate targeted media strategies and deliver appropriate advertising information to target consumers through appropriate media channels.

Different countries have different levels of development, and the development of media and consumers' habits of using media are also different. Through research, we have found that the US and Indonesian markets cannot use exactly the same media strategy.

Let me talk about the United States first. From the above picture, we can see that for the same dollar,  outdoor's effect is very prominent among traditional media. Then, when we are formulating the media strategy for the US market, outdoor is a wise choice to help improve the overall media effect.

Let's talk about Indonesia. Combining Nielsen's research data, we found that in Indonesia, OOH is the second largest media in terms of advertising spending after TV. This shows that outdoor is well recognized by clients and consumers locally, so brands may wish to consider increasing outdoor budgets in Indonesia to optimize the final effect of overall advertising.

Find an area suitable for outdoor campaigns

On the basis of understanding the characteristics of overseas markets and media, we need to find areas corresponding to the client's target groups for outdoor advertising.

In the selection of specific areas, we can compare them with the help of maps, local demographic data and even field trips. Only by analyzing the area from an objective perspective can we find a suitable outdoor ad location.

Take Times Square as an example. Most domestic brands choose Times Square to ad when they go to New York, because it attracts more than 50 million tourists every year. From the first impression, we think Times Square is the best place for brands to reach international tourists.

In fact, we found that in addition to international tourists, it is also the best place to cover local people.

It can be seen from the above subway stations that Times Square and its vicinity are well-developed, including local subway and bus hub stations. Among these daily commuters, most of them are locals. Because of the convenient transportation, there are 12 Fortune 500 companies that have their headquarters here.

Use third-party data to help client choose outdoor media

Having determined the market, media and region, we can use third-party industry data to help clients make reasonable judgments when selecting specific outdoor media.

In the outdoor advertising market in developed countries such as Europe and the United States, they have established unified third-party industry measurement standards, such as Geopath in the United States, MOVE in Australia, and Route in the United Kingdom. These standards have become the universal measurement currency recognized by the industry, and even a consensus of “no data, no budget” has been formed abroad for outdoor ad, which can be used by us in the overseas ad process.

Through the comparison of audience, location, price and other data like the picture above, we can make media selection more objective and scientific, and help customers make the most accurate judgments.

It can be seen that, like domestic OOH, overseas OOH requires a complete set of systematic and professional operating procedures. Moreover, overseas markets have different characteristics from domestic ones. When customers go overseas, it is necessary to choose the right professional partners and use effective research and launch tools to have a higher chance of winning in the overseas ad process, and then grasp better brand communication and corporate development opportunities.

BNR Communication pursues the spirit of Zhang Qian and Zheng He's diplomatic expansion and adventure exploration, focusing on helping brands achieve global outdoor communication and advertising, improving the efficiency and professional standards of brand global outdoor advertising.

In the process of assisting clients with overseas outdoor advertising, we found that most domestic brands lack a basic understanding of the overseas market. In order to help you understand more about the overseas local market information before ad, and then deriving the demand for the regional/media format of brand ad, and improving the efficiency of overseas campaigns, we officially launched this "Global Outdoor Market Analysis" column! In the future, we will gradually introduce the outdoor outlines/features of overseas markets to everyone, so that overseas outdoor advertising will be more professional and targeted.

Start with more than 100 overseas markets that we can operate! First look at the trend of overseas investment. It has ranked first among Chinese companies in European countries for 10 consecutive years. In 2018, the number of tourists from China exceeded 391,000, and it is still growing! At the same time, technology, fashion, football and sports also have a very important position in the world. This is the UK, which has recently become famous for Brexit.

We will follow the steps of outdoor communication planning, starting with market understanding, and briefly analyze and introduce the outdoor market in the UK, and make preliminary preparations for the ad needs.

Media usage habits — Outdoor is the top four advertising media

When we advertise overseas, we must first refer to the brand's usage of local media. According to GroupM's latest report, in 2019, the UK outdoor (left outdoor + cinema below) is expected to account for approximately 6% of its overall advertising, which belongs to the TOP 4 advertising media category along with television, digital and other media.

Then we look at the choice of market area. From the analysis of demographic data, the UK is a highly urbanized market. 82.9% of the people belong to the urban population and most of them live in the top ten cities in the UK (above right), while the population of London accounts for about 11.1% of the entire UK population. Therefore, London is the first choice for brands to ad outdoors in the UK.

Regional characteristics of the market-London

Speaking of London, let us first take a look at the regional characteristics of London. In general, the relatively core areas of London are concentrated on both banks of the Thames. From the picture below, we can see the main attractions and subway stations along the river in central London. Local outdoor advertising is also mainly displayed in these areas.

Among them, the tourist attractions frequently visited by Chinese people are in the West End of London, including the Royal Palace, the Prime Minister’s Residence, London Bridge, etc., which are all tourist check-in destinations representing London’s history and culture; then everyone’s favorite shopping areas are located in Oxford Street, Covent Garden, and Knightsbridge. , Regent Street, Bond Street and other places, this is also the place where outdoor advertising gathers; and the CBD where business elites work is mainly located in the City of London (east of St. Paul’s Cathedral), with the emerging financial district of East London,Canary Wharf, the two financial districts face each other across the river.

Usage of OOH

At present, when brands ad overseas, they will give priority to landmarks. Taking London as an example, Piccadilly Circus is as famous as Times Square in New York, and many subway and bus routes are gathered here. The Piccadilly Light is the most eye-catching landmark media in the square, and it is also the landmark media where tourists must take pictures and check in. In addition, it is a very common mode for London white-collar workers to take the train into the city and then transfer to the subway/bus. The IMAX  in front of the main transportation hub Waterloo Station, the 360-degree circular media, and the flexible lighting changes have become important for the brand’s global debut. 

However, because large landmarks impose many restrictions on brands and high advertising costs, domestic brands currently have few opportunities to advertise on these two major media. Relatively speaking, according to the brand’s current advertising habits, they will consider the large screens in the Leicester Square Theater District close to Piccadilly Circus and Chinatown, and the Canary Wharf screens where financial elites gather in the Eastern District, than the above two landmarks. 

In addition to landmarks that came to mind for the first time, brands actually have a choice of transportation media that occupy the mainstream of local outdoor advertising. According to statistics from the Outdoor Advertising Industry Association of the United Kingdom, transportation media accounts for nearly half of the total outdoor advertising, including subway, bus and street media, which can help brands achieve large-scale audience coverage.

The subway is the preferred mode of public transportation for London residents. The subway network extends in all directions and makes travel extremely convenient. Although its facilities look old, the digitalization of media is the world's leading.

The bus has to mention the London bus. The creative form of the big picture and the route coverage of the whole city, when they are driving on the road, they are mega billboards moving one by one! At the same time, they have two super-large red buses, one is a classic old model, and the other is a new model launched in the 2012 Olympics, which are very popular with brands.

Local street facilities are also popular with customers, and its media has been digitized earlier. The UK is the first country in the world to launch digital street media. They can currently target areas such as business circles and select media by locations.

The above is a preliminary introduction to the UK market. For brands, understanding this information should be the basic action necessary to enter each new market, so that they can more accurately select the most appropriate ad area and advertising format to effectively communicate with the target audience. We believe in professional practices, and we believe that based on information and data reference, we can do the right thing step by step. This is our original intention for setting up this column. If you need to know more market information, welcome to interact with us to learn more about it, and do it right and do it well.

BNR Communication pursues the spirit of Zhang Qian and Zheng He's diplomatic expansion and adventure exploration, focusing on helping brands achieve global outdoor communication and advertising, and improving the efficiency and professional standards of brand global outdoor advertising.

From August 20th to 21st, the "2020 China Outdoor Advertising Forum" hosted by the China Advertising Association and the Shanxi Advertising Association as the co-sponsor was held in Taiyuan, Shanxi Province. BNR Communication were awarded the "Contribution Unit for Public Service Advertisements in Fighting the Epidemic"by #sendinglove campaign.  

Co-sponsored by the World Out of Home Organization, BNR participated in the organization and coordination of the "#SendingLove" DOOH public welfare campaign, calling on people to use their imagination and creativity to take a heart-shaped photo with both hands and upload to the official website. You can pass love and care to friends in various countries and cities. During the one-month event, the event received support from more than 40 countries, among which BNR was responsible for the Asia-Pacific region including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chongqing, Qingdao, Shenyang, Wuhan, Chengdu, Hong Kong, Seoul, Tokyo, etc. The landmark  screens in 12 cities actively participated in it, which is the world's largest DOOH UGC (User Generated Content) event so far.

As a bridge between China and the world, BNR has been taking action in the field of outdoor public welfare communication, and doing its best to promote the industry. In addition to "#SendingLove", in August, we also assisted WOO in planning  "#OurSecondChance" DOOH public welfare activities, asking people to reflect on the epidemic and better cherish the present life.

The impact of the epidemic on the industry is not small, but from the enthusiasm of everyone actively participating in these anti-epidemic publicity activities at home and abroad, it can be seen that the industry is not stuck at the moment, and is actively looking for a way out. How to develop in the post-epidemic era has become a highlight of this forum. Among them, both research institutions and agencies continue to be optimistic about the future of Outdoor. 

Judging from the feedback from forum guests and participants, the impact of the epidemic on OOH is short-term and limited. From a positive perspective, the epidemic may not necessarily be a bad thing to promote the digital upgrade of media owners and return the media to the basic value of communication and marketing. The outdoor advertising industry has existed for thousands of years. It has been through trials and hardships, but it still exists today and will continue to exist. With the epidemic under control, countries have unblocked them one after another, and various scenes in cities and even cinemas have begun to reopen, and the clarion call for outdoor revival is sounding.

Note: The "Contribution Unit for Public Service Advertisements in the Fight against the Epidemic" was initiated by the Outdoor Advertising Branch of the China Advertising Association and reported to the China Advertising Association for approval.