Aaron Poole, marketing executive, PML Group with this week’s Out \ Look on Out of Home.
Best OOH Campaigns of 2023 Revealed
A very special Out \ Look this week as we announce the winners of the 2023 IMPACT Awards, including campaigns for McDonald’s, Bank of Ireland, and Guinness. We partnered with Ipsos to research the effectiveness of more than 800 Outdoor advertising campaigns in 2022, as part of our IMPACT research offering.
The twelve winners are drawn from a diverse range of product categories including Finance, Telecoms, Dining, and Retail. 2022 was a huge year for Out of Home. Big brands reconnected with the OOH audience through strong, impactful messaging on both classic and digital Outdoor formats. This approach is evident among the winners, delivering a potent mix of smart media choice and creative excellence.
The An Post Christmas Tin-Man proved the best campaign in the Services sector, while the festive season was a winning theme also for Cadbury and its Secret Santa initiative. Centra came out on top in the highly competitive Retail category, using Outdoor to promote its snack ranges that make ‘nights in’ great. Taxi app FREE NOW used public transport to great effect while Disney’s promotion of its summer programming won out in the Entertainment & Media category.
Back-to-back winners for 2022 and 2023 included Bank of Ireland, Cadbury, and Virgin Media. The twelve awards are shared between 5 media agencies with Carat and PHD picking up three apiece and Starcom, OMD and Zenith with two each. Irish creative agencies picking up awards include Publicis, TBWA, BBDO, Oliver, and Boys + Girls .
The independent research, carried out across all 26 OOH cycles of last year, measured key effectiveness metrics such as recall, creative rating, message understanding, relevance, and call to action. Approximately 8,000 Dublin adults participated in the 2022 IMPACT programme. Winning campaigns were the best in class by category, based on a combination of campaign awareness and creative impact.
The full list of winners is:
ALCOHOL
Guinness / PHD / Source OOH
COMMUNICATIONS & TELECOMS
Virgin Media / OMD / Publicis / PML
CONFECTIONERY
Cadbury / Carat / PML
DINING
McDonald’s / Zenith / Source OOH
FINANCE
Bank of Ireland / Carat / Oliver / PML
FOOD
Kellogg’s / Carat / Double D creative / PML
MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT
Disney+ / Zenith / BBDO Dublin / Source OOH
PERSONAL CARE & WELLNESS
Panadol / ZENITH / RTÉ / Source OOH
RETAIL
Centra / Starcom / TBWA Dublin / Source OOH
SERVICES & UTILITIES
An Post / Starcom / Folk WT / Source OOH
SOFT DRINKS
Pepsi Max / OMD / Source OOH
TOURISM & TRAVEL
FREE NOW / PHD / Boys + Girls / Source OOH
Bus and Luas Journeys exceed Pre-Pandemic Levels
At over 3.2 million, the number of bus journeys in Dublin for week 8 (week beginning 20 February 2023) was up 54% YoY and 10% higher compared with the number of journeys in the same week in 2019, new CSO data shows. The number of bus journeys outside Dublin in week 8 of 2023 exceeded 2019 figures by 31%.
The number of bus journeys outside Dublin in the same week were up 63% on the same week last year, and also exceeded 2019 figures by 31%, the transport bulletin shows. Rail and Luas journeys are up 58% and 64% respectively, versus 12 months previous.
In the first two months of the year car traffic levels increased both in Dublin (+8%) and regionally (+15%).
The data captures changing traffic volumes and the number of journeys taken on public transport.
McDonald’s serve up on DOOH with innovative ‘food trucks’
When McDonald’s Sweden launched their new street food-style fried chicken burger in recent weeks, they were keen to get their product in front of consumers new and old.
Rather than go the traditional advertising route, they decided to embrace the namesake of the product and take it to the streets – but not in a way you might expect.
Embracing the innovative capabilities of Outdoor, agency Nord DDB located DOOH panels in proximity to McDonald’s restaurants in central areas Stockholm and Vasteras. To these wheels and an awning were added, effectively turning them into modern day ‘food trucks’.
Once drawn to the installations, consumers were faced with a stylised creative featuring a large QR code. Upon scanning, a digital chef would then begin to prepare the new product and, once the loop had ended, the consumer’s device would be sent a voucher for a free fried chicken burger to be redeemed in the McDonald’s app. The customer could then redeem this and pick up their very real burger at the nearby restaurant. Tasty!
“We wanted a new take on DOOH advertising, something which felt engaging, interactive, and fresh while also letting people know about, and perhaps try, McDonald’s Sweden’s new burger,” noted Josefina Norén, art director at Nord DDB.
The campaign aligns with our OCS study which showed that food, and what to have for lunch and dinner, is often on people’s minds as they commute, exercise, and socialise outside of the home. This in effective combination with the use of customised OOH and the (growingly provocative) QR codes makes this a stellar special for McDonald’s and a great example of how innovation on OOH is only limited by the imagination.
