How often do you pay attention to the details in the wallpaper of your home? Chances are, not often at all, because you see it all the time. We can apply this same theory to standard Out of Home (OOH) advertising: billboards, big posters, and static digital screens can become background noise, especially in busy environments. It turns into urban wallpaper that we walk past every day and pay little to no attention to.
With the amount of work put into OOH advertising campaigns, they shouldn’t be doomed to fade into the background. Instead, they must be designed to stand out in new and innovative ways. Think unique placement, attention-grabbing moving stimuli, and elements that simply can’t be achieved in printed ads.
Here’s the bottom line: An OOH campaign with impact requires thinking outside the box. Fortunately, projection has never been confined to boxes. Let’s talk about how projection mapping can make your OOH advertising campaign into a memorable and shareable WOW moment.
Every surface has OOH advertising potential
Are you ready to think beyond the billboard? Typically restricted by size and shape, billboards limit your OOH ad’s creative potential. By turning to less conventional techniques, such as projection, you’re able to scale beyond the frame.
Projection and the capacity to map almost any surface open up a whole new world of advertising space and potential. No more size, shape, or location limits – now, you can cast your ad onto the side of a hotel, a bridge, a football pitch, a retail store fitting; the list goes on. With professional projection mapping services allowing for visuals of all shapes and sizes to be cast onto a staggering variety of surfaces, you can push your advertising campaign to new heights of impact.
Oftentimes, scale equals awe; the bigger and more larger-than-life something is, the more reaction you draw from its audience. This kind of reaction tends to linger, helping to make your ad more memorable, too. Projection means the chance to create ad visuals that tower over passersby, stretch far along walls, and even curve around corners. The possibilities are almost endless.
If you’re struggling to imagine what we mean by ‘any surface’, let us offer an example of work we’ve done that many didn’t realise was possible with mapping and projection: our work with Octopus Energy, the UK’s largest supplier of domestic electricity and gas. They wanted ‘stop-and-stare power’, and we delivered by projecting visuals onto one of their 73 metre tall wind turbines.
OOH advertising that demands a social share
OOH advertising is seen by the people physically viewing it, but impactful OOH advertising is also seen by millions online. In this age of social media, it’s essential to design ad campaigns that people will want to share online, whether on their Instagram to show their friends and families or on LinkedIn to discuss its marketing power. Utilising projection mapping helps turn that urban wallpaper we discussed earlier into something worthy of gracing people’s feeds.
We believe that today, the goal shouldn’t be just to show people an ad. Instead, it should be to create a moment, something people will actually want to share with others – others who will help do your advertising for you, through sharing.
To capture people’s attention in such a way, your ads must stand out, which projection can help with. At Motion Mapping, we can project still, moving, and even interactive visuals onto unusual locations in unique shapes and exciting sizes. All of these have the power to turn heads and lift phones.
If each person who sees the ad in person shares it, which is then seen by 100 people, and 5,000 people see and share the ad, that’s 500,000 people with eyes on your ad. Projection is impactful enough to spark those shares, turning an OOH activation into a global campaign.
Turn passive viewers into active participants
The most interaction a person can have with a printed ad is scanning a QR code with their camera. While this is nothing to scoff at, what if it could be more? Bigger, better, bolder? Projection mapping can make that possible. Transform OOH advertising into an interactive display and transform a one-way conversation into a dialogue.
RFID sensors, touch sensors, laser paths, QR codes, and more can be utilised in an almost endless list of ways to turn your ad into something interactive. From triggering visual changes from proximity to literally playing a game on the side of a skyscraper, there is so much you can do with interactive projection mapping to not only make advertising memorable and shareable, but also create an immediate opportunity for conversions you may be looking for.
We built a real scratch-off web game for a doughnut business and projected this game onto the side of a towering building. Passersby could scan the QR code, which would take them to the web game, which would also appear on the projection. They played the game to win a code for free doughnuts, which showed up on the projection and was sent to their email. This got people talking and sharing, and ensured people visited the store for their free doughnut, plus extra purchases.
With so many possibilities, it can be difficult to know where to start. Reach out to our team, and we’ll explain in full how our interactive projections work. We can talk through your ideas and work together to visualise their reality, from creating a concept from scratch to filling in the gaps of your existing proposal.
A new standard for OOH campaigns with impact
It’s time to stop buying space and start creating spectacles if you want your brand or activation to be remembered. Instead of just showing audiences your ad, we can help you animate your campaign message in new and exciting ways through projection mapping that will actually engage people. Explore the power and possibilities of projection mapping services and get ready to start making memorable Out of Home advertising campaigns that actually get attention, not just eyes.