Aaron Poole, marketing executive, PML Group with this week’s Out \ Look on Out of Home
One of the spookiest times of the year has been upon us this week with Halloween filling the streets with folks ready to trick or treat in their respective way. As the nights grow longer and the air fills with a sense of magic and mystery, Smirnoff has joined in on the fun with a campaign that lights up the night in a unique manner.
With its already-aligned Spicy Tamarind variety featuring a fiery Hallowe’en-aligned look, Smirnoff has seized the opportunity to deliver a captivating OOH campaign that’s full of tricks and treats for the eyes. The creative features elements inspired by a mix of Dia de los Muertos and the Hallowe’en season—drawing on both the eerie and the festive, with vibrant splashes of colour and darkness.
Planned by PHD and Source out of home, the campaign has been live this cycle across 48 Sheets, Roadside & Mall Digital screens, including Digitowers, Tesco Digiscreens, and Adshel Live Retail near points of purchase. Digipanels and Adshel Live Roadside target consumers head-on in bustling city centre environments, while the Green Screen at Stephen’s Green Shopping Centre illuminates shoppers as they gather around Dublin’s busiest public square and the Grafton Street district.
Smirnoff’s spooky campaign doesn’t just stand out—it glows. At night, a unmissable mural transforms when hit with UV light, capturing the eerie and transformative essence of Halloween in Dublin. The building-side mural, created by Collectiv Marketing and artist Jorge Ruiz Calleja, has been erected at Stoneybatter’s ‘The Belfry’. It features glowing accoutrements including vibrant marigolds and a decorated skull—perfect for the season when the veil between the living and the supernatural is said to be at its thinnest.
“The interplay of UV art with our classic formats like 48 Sheets and Digital Large Screens makes this campaign unmissable—whether it’s day or night,” says Pat Cassidy, Digital, Innovation and Experiential Manager at PML Group. “Smirnoff’s Halloween activation showcases how OOH can celebrate cultural moments in an engaging and memorable way.”
For brand varieties such as Smirnoff Spicy Tamarind, OOH plays a pivotal role in discovery and building awareness. According to our IMPACT Attention series, 67% of consumers have discovered brands through OOH ads. This impact is particularly strong among younger (18-24-year-olds) and middle-aged (45-54-year-olds) audiences, with 75% and 73% of these groups, respectively, encountering brands for the first time via OOH.
OOH with Venom
Sony Pictures has gone all out to promote Venom: The Last Dance, and Dubliners got front-row seats to a show-stopping OOH campaign this week.
The larger-than-life character deserved an equally larger-than-life activation. The city’s Convention Centre became the “battleground” with an unmissable projection lighting up the Dublin skyline. Planned by OMD Ireland and Source out of home, the projection wrapped the Convention Centre in a montage of action straight from the film, ending by showing Venom and Tom Hardy’s Eddie Brock locked in an intense gaze as each faced down either side of the River Liffey.
The activation was a major feature of the film’s wider OOH campaign that has been live since cycle 21. In addition to Digital Golden Squares, DXScreens and The Green Screen live this cycle, the campaign leveraged OOH to build pre-release buzz, capturing attention where audiences live, work, and play across T-Sides, 96 Sheets, and 48 Sheets.
Our IMPACT Attention research shows that innovative OOH formats including projections are an extremely effective means of capturing attention, with 85% noting this as being the case. The study also found that 84% of respondents consider advertisers who make use of these innovative formats as being innovative themselves, setting great expectations for those who decide to go beyond the billboard.
“OOH has the power to turn an everyday journey into something spectacular,” says Van Tham, Account Manager at Source out of home “With Venom, the client wanted to bring the movie’s energy directly to the consumer. The Convention Centre’s projection was the perfect canvas to amplify that excitement—and it’s all about creating moments that people can’t help but notice.”
Virgin Media pits Dubliner favourites head-to-head
Taking a dip in the Forty Foot or Portmarnock? Up the Bohs or up the Shels? Going for a Spice bag or Chipper?
Virgin Media is reigniting the debate across among some of the most controversial decisions to be made among Dubliners this cycle with their latest contextual campaign in the capital.
Displaying across T-Sides, Golden Squares, Metro/Digipoles, 48 Sheets, and Digital Bridges, copy asks the key questions alongside relevant imagery, intending to provoke a siding response from passers-by before shifting focus quickly to the tagline “One thing Dubliners can agree on is Virgin Media as their #1 choice for broadband.”
Planned by PML and OMD Ireland, with creative from Publicis, the campaign is the latest in Virgin Media’s contextual lineup of OOH. Previous campaigns have featured location callouts and nods to concerts happening in the capital including P!NK’s Summer Carnival and Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. The most recent Playtime campaign also featured gamified bus shelters and transit 6 sheets relating to the daily commute.
Contextually relevant content is a powerful conduit for brands to entertain and engage consumers. Our IMPACT Attention research showed 65% feel this type of messaging effectively captured their attention, while 60% stated they were more likely to notice future ads from brands using contextual messaging.
