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In 2016, Google unveiled a new way for brands to think about the way they engage their customers. They called the concept 'micro-moments' and defined a micro-moment as "an intent-rich moment when a person turns to a device to act on a need — to know, go, do, or buy" and it makes sense, right?
The moment where a brand can intercept intent and potentially turn that prospect into a paying customer. But what about the moment before the moment? The one that triggers the reflex to grab their device and look for something?
The ultimate influencer
Out of Home tends to fall back on the fact of life that we spend more time out of our homes than in them and while we've certainly spent more time in our homes than we have traditionally, we are still on the go. In fact, the DPAA recently shared a study showing that marketers are underestimating how many people are commuting daily for work and overestimating how many people are working from home. That means there is a HUGE opportunity for brands to take advantage of influencing moments of consideration with key audiences.
Telling a better story of how brands can 'Win The Moment'
Did you know that mobile searches continue to rise for "Top ____ Brands"?
Or that search interest for "open now" has tripled in the past two years?
How about that watch time of YouTube videos with "ideas" in the title has grown 135% in the past few years?
Okay, now consider this — if the majority of our time is spent out of the home and we are looking for top brands, open venues, and new ideas, then how is OOH not playing a larger role in that discovery?
"It is Tim, that's the magic of Out of Home!"
I totally agree, it definitely is...for the brands that are doing it. But mobile online advertising is a $200B global industry vs Out of Home, globally, at $30B.
I saw a really cool article the other day about how Out of Home advertising is thousands of years old. Well, internet advertising is only 25 years old and they're kicking our butt.
For brands? There is clearly a monstrous opportunity to become a "top brand", to remind people they are "open now", and to inspire ideas like "things to do".
Okay, how do we use it?
Stop trying to make OOH about perfect attribution. The smartest marketers I know are the ones who don't try to prove 100% attribution (save for direct response marketers, of course). One of my favorite questions to ask in meetings "do you think Geico would ever give 100% credit to the display ad that someone clicked on to request a quote?". That usually jerks them back into reality, we high-five, agree and go crush it.
Instead, tell better stories and help them optimize.
Here's my 3-step framework for doing that:
- Help advertisers understand their own customer's journey
- Reverse engineer that journey to identify where the funnel leaks - choke points, conversion mechanisms, trip wires, and all forms of friction
- Identify your best opportunity to knock down big dominos for the customer - establish authority, give the most relevant information in the most convenient ways, as quickly as possible.
What does it all look like?
Put it altogether.
For example, billboards drive search activity. Does your website rank for the things people are likely to search after seeing your billboard? If not, are you running paid search? Should you be? How does the billboard campaign improve click-thru-rates and quality score and ultimately drive down average cost-per-click?
Running a social engagement campaign on some wild postings? Are you using qr codes to deliver relevant content immediately and connect the dots easily?
There is no more powerful medium for influencing the moments that trigger the digital reflex than Out of Home. Let's tell that story.