Sun’s out, Gun’s out? More like sun’s out, outdoor advertising out.
The summer time is the best time for being outdoors. Translation: its the best time to advertise outdoors. The summer brings with it not only increased outdoor traffic but tourism and fun outdoor activities. Meaning a lot of opportunities to get your brand out there and start advertising your business or campaign. It is a fact of business (and life) that people spend more during the summer months, from the health and fitness to the entertainment industry, they all see a spike in sales. So it is time to put all of your marketing and creative ability to the test to produce the best OOH advertisements possible.
In this article, I will be going through a few steps that will help any campaign fit right into the summer vibe.
Know Your Audience
It is an important part of any campaign or advertisement to know exactly who you are targeting. And especially in the summer, people seem to become more trigger happy with their credit cards. Therefore, you should identify a niche and make sure you advertise to them specifically. In that way, you can ensure that your campaign will be as efficient as possible. Your audience will be more susceptible if what your are selling has some relation to the current season. For example, if you are advertising clothes it would make thematic sense to sell clothes that would work for the summer months. Now, this is a very simple example, and most OOH campaign advertisements are not as straight forward. Out-of-Home (OOH) advertisements are extremely diverse and fall under many markets. So it is even more important to understand your audience and how to grab their attention. One common way of achieving this, regardless of your audience, is advertising a sale. Everyone loves a sale. Especially when the weather is nice, people are actively looking for things to do and places to spend their money. This is just one way to entice your audience. OOH allows for many possible strategies to help you increase sales during the summer months.
Once you have produced your campaign and have placed it on an OOH billboards to view, enjoy, and interact with, the most important thing then is to be patient. It takes time for OOH ads to see a return, it is just the way the business works, as it takes time for billboards to gain recognition, so it is important to wait ample time to see the fruits of your labour. Having said that, if you are looking for a quick-cash opportunity OOH ads are not for you.
Plan Your Campaign Accordingly
Take advantage of Out-of-Home Advertisements
It is important that you use all the tools at your disposal to get the most out of your ads. All of the major companies around the world recognize the market changes that occur during the summer months. Therefore, there are a few steps you want want to consider abiding by if you want to ensure your summer campaign is a success. Such things include: linking your ad to your social media accounts through the use of hashtags, using QR codes that will take users to more of your content, and running a social media campaign along with your OOH ad to help strengthen your message to your target audience. All three of these tips include the use of consumers phones. In the summer, school is out and many are on vacation, meaning increased screen time for these individuals. It is a great way to help reinforce your campaign and increase your outreach.
While social media is an incredible tool to help advertise it is also important to think outside of the conventional options to keep your campaigns fresh and ahead of the curve. Examples of practices that have seen to be successful in the past include: putting stickers on your cars to increase viewership and distributing phone covers with your brand on it. It can not be underestimated how subtle advertising can be at times and how it effects potential customers. As such, you must be certain that you use all the OOH ad tools to your advantage. These small additions to cars and phones seem simple, but in truth, they really help increasing your brand recognition frequency.
While many people are out during the summer time, they will probably only interact with your ad for three seconds, at best. Obviously, three seconds is not enough time to get your brand identity recognized, in that case, you must make sure to be loud and creative with your OOH ads. Standing out is a must in order to get the exposure you require. As according to bitrebels advice for OOH adverting, you should make sure to have your company name or logo on the ad itself to make your brand more recognizable. Through this, you can become instantly recognizable with the viewers who have had multiple interaction with your brand or ad. On top of that, if you are not a worldwide recognized brand, it would be a better idea to stick to a creative image over just plain text, as the image is likely to resonate more with the potential clients. Moreover, another benefit of using a creative image is that the colours of the image will be easier to see from a distant, not only does this increase the amount of people who have some sort of impression with the ad it also becomes more noticeable. Also it is proven that a loud selection of colours are a lot better at evoking different ideas and emotions in the viewer as opposed to just text. So be sure to take advantage of that if you want to increase the chances of your brand connecting with people.
Fit the Summer Campaign Character
As mentioned earlier, you need to loud, bright and creative in order to fit right into summer advertising. In this section I’ll be going through three marketing techniques to do just that through different summer campaign strategies.
Firstly, make sure to take advantage of summer festival and campaigns. You can do this by printing out full colour custom brands banners, table covers, and other fun paraphernalia that would work for your specific brand. By doing this you increase the surface area your brand will cover and doing it at different summer fairs or events you’ll be sure to stand out in a busy crowd.
Secondly, have fun and promotional products to spread. As mentioned earlier, foot traffic is at an all time high in the summer. And if you would like to use that to your advantage it would be a good idea to have fun things to pass to potential customers. Also, being able to just hand someone something free and fun-looking can be done really quick, so you won’t have to worry about stopping someone abruptly on the street or coming up with the right preprepared script to make a sale. This method is a really simple tactic that will allow you to move through many different potential customers really quickly. Examples of things you could pass out can include, small power banks (everyone is always looking for a charger), branded hats, and sunglasses. These examples illustrate not only things people need in general but things they will specifically need during the heat of summer.
Thirdly, and finally, it is alway important to make a great first impression, especially when it comes to advertising, so it is always a good idea to think about a little gesture to leave your potential customers feeling positive about their interaction with your brand. Small things like handing them out water bottles with your logo or brand name can create a positive connection. This positive connection could also make them more willing to interact with your brand or campaign for longer, allowing them to learn more about what you do.
What have we learned?
If you are still not convinced about the importance and potential in summer OOH advertising, I will give you some cold hard facts that prove that the summertime is the best time to advertise your brand or campaign. 92% of the population remain in the country. 55% of their annual budget is spend during the summer, and there is an 11% increase in brand awareness during the summer months. If all of the points made earlier did not convince you, these quantitative statistics should make it irrefutable for you.
Now, after all of this information regarding summer campaigns that have been presented have been discussed thoroughly you should be prepared to execute any sort of advertising strategy successfully. Just remember the tips and tricks that have been laid out above an you will be sure to be ahead of the curve all summer.
Keywords: Summer Campaigns, OOH,
References:
https://bubbleoutdoor.com/how-to-get-the-best-out-of-outdoor-advertising-this-summer/
https://goodwaygroup.com/blog/3-tips-heat-summer-ad-campaign/
https://adespresso.com/blog/marketing-tips-create-seasonal-campaigns/
https://www.morebusiness.com/summer-advertising-tips/
https://www.bitrebels.com/business/5-tips-effective-outdoor-advertising/
https://www.slideshare.net/clearchannelbelgium/outdoor-advertising-during-summer
