Table of contents for December /January 2016 in Marketing

Australia’s premier digital media space towers over Melbourne’s busiest intersection at Flinders and Swanston Streets. Adjacent to Federation Square and Flinders Street Station, this LED site commands commuters’ attention as they exit the country’s largest transport interchange. Multiple advertisers comprise a rotational display schedule, and on one Tuesday evening in November that included our very own masthead to create the cover for this special issue.…

Adjective 1. Done, situated, or used out of doors: a huge outdoor concert. 2. Fond of the open air or open-air activities: a rugged, outdoor type. Oxford English Dictionary 72%of people have seen outdoor advertising in the past seven days. – 'The Attention Economy', 2014. “There will be weather-related, date-related and very topical news-related digital outdoor activity, the surface of which has only been scratched so far.” – Mark Lollback, McDonald’s, page 26. 34%of people have engaged with a poster/billboard/ digital screen format. – 'The Airport Economy, 2015', Aus/NZ. “The creative ideas to make the most of digital outdoor are in relatively short supply. Yes, we need more data, but also, to quote a billion school reports, we ‘must try harder’.” – Joe Copley, Posterscope, page 80. “Brand marketers need…

GE’S BRILLIANT BREW BOTS At SXSW 2013, GE took the coffee truck to another digital level, creating a robot that drew portraits of customers as latté art. A webcam took a photo of those waiting for their caffeine fix and then the program processed the image to simplify the outlines and draw it using a syringe of coffee into the top of the foam. SAMSUNG’S VR LOUNGE Samsung has been involved in the festival for several years now, and the brand’s permanent lounge consistently draws a long line over the course of the event. Attendees interact with every part of the lounge through Samsung products, of course, including tablets for designing personalised clothes and bags and the Samsung Gear virtual reality headset through which they’re guided along an immersive course.…

With a giant lunchbox to launch its steak products, McDonald’s Australia not only tapped into the zeitgeist of experiential marketing, but also made it into the Guinness World Records. It was a campaign aimed at taking the ‘boring’ out of lunchtime, and McDonald’s Australia CMO Mark Lollback says he’s passionate about having fun, being disruptive and really getting out with the people. “The agency said, ‘Well, the whole campaign’s about lunch, so why don’t we build the biggest lunchbox?’ So we built a big lunchbox and parked it down near the Opera House, where it sat for two days,” says Lollback. “People wondered what it was about, then it opened as a restaurant and we gave away free sampling tasters of the steak wrap.” It was so successful in Sydney,…

The process of bringing a digital billboard to life is complex and meticulous, from the initial idea to the go live date there are many boxes that must be ticked, parties involved and considerations to be made. 1. Strategic fit assessment APN Outdoor places emphasis on ensuring every digital asset has a clear and concise strategic fit and purpose within the business. Our cities, roads and freeways are dynamic and constantly changing, so careful consideration is given to the placement of digital assets and how they are expected to perform in the future. Our digital signage generally needs to span a life cycle of time up to 15 years, so getting the fundamentals right is critical. Our assessment of strategic fit will include the proximity of other digital assets to…

Every January, there is a buzz in the air that can be felt throughout Sydney. The city comes alive as Sydneysiders and visitors from all over come together to celebrate the highest quality art and big ideas that Sydney Festival has to offer. The Festival has come to define Sydney’s personality and diversity with its audacious contemporary programming and colourful summer fun. Originally conceived in 1977 to attract people into the city centre during the holiday months, the Festival has grown into one of Australia’s largest annual cultural celebrations. In 2015, with a staggering 179 free and ticketed events showcasing 974 artists from 30 countries and an audience attendance of 554,122 people, there is no denying that this major event is a standout in Australia’s cultural calendar. Sydney Festival really…

Five years after graduating with a commerce degree from the University of Tasmania, Moore was working on CRM at one of Australia’s largest banks. It was the nineties, a revolutionary decade for data-driven marketing. Four years in and he’d reached the top of the bank’s CRM function – a global position, since at the time it owned Michigan National in the US. That North American experience, as well as his thirst for challenge and change, saw Moore relocate to Canada to head up CRM at Scotiabank. His next move was, unusually for him, just across Toronto at Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC), where he became senior vice president of marketing. After six years in Canada and a decade in banking, the change bug bit again, and Moore relocated to…

ALL MEDIA HAVE their own unique bag of tricks to satisfy advertisers’ needs. Each has its strengths and weaknesses that may put one ahead of another in media channel selection. But in the main, these characteristics never change. Outdoor advertising has relied on a set of characteristics that provide an advertiser with high impact viewing, longevity of messaging and high frequency together with many other features and benefits. One of the characteristics that potentially held us back in the past is the timeliness of the logistics of printing, transportation and physical installation of the material. Apart from being brighter, and consequently more engaging to a viewer, digital screens have revolutionised outdoor’s characteristics and consequently its application when it comes to providing premium solutions for advertisers. Essentially, our bag of tricks…

As pioneers of digital outdoor across Australia and New Zealand, our vision for powering this issue of Marketing is to reflect on a moment in time within this bourgeoning industry. To admire the triumphs of the medium, reflect on the challenges and anticipate the imminent and longer-term developments, we have been fortunate enough to speak with local and international experts in their field, each with a unique affinity and a thought-provoking perspective on digital outdoor. If you are an advertiser, supplier, client of ours or any marketer for that matter, you will know it is impossible to ignore the advent of digital outdoor and the impact this is having on the evolving media landscape. As frontrunners in this space, our commitment to quality, agnostic approach to technology and leadership position…

In 2008, Sydney Airport looked very different. The shops looked different. The passenger profile looked different. And the advertising looked different. From that point the Sydney Airport has been on a mission to pursue new digital opportunities. Martin Salter, head of advertising and new media, has been leading the evolution of the digital and advertising spaces at the airport, seeking out commercial opportunities in digital experiences and outdoor media. Salter also looks after partnerships such as that with American Express, in which the airport identified an opportunity to partner with the global brand to deliver customer enhancements. At the same time the brand can provide its customers with enhanced value through ‘money can’t buy’ opportunities. He also sits on the digital committee that was set up in 2015. Marketing…

The luxury market is currently waking up to the opportunities of ‘digital’. Conventional thinking was that the online and luxury experience were incompatible, but with the likes of Net-a-Porter engaging with millions of consumers every day across its online site, app and social media channels, this thinking has been widely debunked. A 2014 report by McKinsey, ‘Luxury Shopping in the Digital Age’, concluded that while ecommerce represented just 4% of luxury sales, 40% of luxury purchases were in some way influenced by consumers’ digital experience, whether that be online or through social media. Don’t let the tail wag the dog Given these findings, it would be very easy for luxury brands to over-index in favour of online marketing at the expense of outdoor, especially when competing for the attention of…

The best ideas often come from times of pressure. 2012 was a challenging year for most in the New Zealand advertising industry, but this was the year in which we at APN Outdoor designed our digital development strategy. The strategic organisational pillars were: be first to market; lead the way; and, invest in the most premium quality technology. After robust negotiations with Auckland Council, we secured consent to build New Zealand's first permanent digital billboard, which was launched by the Mayor of Auckland on 1 July 2013. From here, a network of five screens was launched in July 2014 and this is where we truly hit our stride. Next it was into the airport space with Apollo, our iconic curved Elite Screen, and our Portrait Tower Screen both going live…

FIRST, TAKE IT seriously, or you will miss an opportunity to make your message 50% more memorable (OCS UK). This is achieved through relevance – digital outdoor can deliver messages in real time, at the right time, in the right place. Once you’ve got your head around this real-time opportunity, you need some data to inform your creative brief. Who is the audience, how do they feel, why are they there, what is the dwell time, how can your brand be most relevant to them and how much does all that change by time of day, day of week, weather conditions and traffic? If you don’t have the data, try and get some, or make some assumptions to get the ideas flowing. The advantage of digital outdoor is that the…

Welcome, Dear Reader, to this very special issue of Marketing. It’s currently the height of summer and a time when the outdoors is the place to be seen – not least for brands. To bring you this special bonus issue we've collaborated with APN Outdoor, Australia and New Zealand's leading outdoor provider, to investigate and showcase the world of digital outdoor. As you’ll see throughout this issue, there is no shortage of media smarts and technological innovation happening behind the scenes in the world of outdoor, as this most traditional of media continues to reinvent itself. Outdoor's consistent growth in both revenue and audience is testament to its ability to buck the trend and find new ways to remain a frontline weapon in a brand’s arsenal. As Marketing’s Michelle Herbison…

For two weeks in the summer of 2013, static and digital signage all over the UK hosted a selection of British masterpieces, spanning from the 1500s to the present day. The Art Everywhere project began as a collaboration between Richard Reed, co-founder of Innocent Drinks, the Art Fund national fundraising charity, Tate galleries and creative agency 101, as well as Posterscope, Vizeum, Easyart and Facebook. More than £3 million worth of inventory was donated by world-renowned outdoor media providers. Billboards, tube stations, shopping centres, buses and black cabs played the part of gallery walls for works selected by public vote, which in the inaugural edition comprised 57 pieces, including The Lady of Shalott by John William Waterhouse, Ophelia by John Everett Millais and Head VI by Francis Bacon. Art lovers…

The world is an amazing place. It is also a bloody complex one, full of curious and compelling stories of people and how they engage with society, the media, brands and other people. This has seen the rise the capability and desire of marketers to make use of data to solve the problem of complexity. The more people engage, the more information is available to understand the ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘where’ and ‘when’ – job done, right? But what about the story behind the ‘why’? When thinking about the role that qualitative research plays in answering this, the traditional focus group or interview still plays a critical role; however, ethnography and semiotics are increasingly being used to truly get to the heart of meaning in a more complex world. Finding answers…