The Power of Static and Digital OOH with Samy Naidu

00:02:23 · Kirsty CarlsonPlay from here

[00:02:23] S2: I completely agree. And I think the timing for this episode, while there are so many out of home specialists and above the line media planners and brands busy planning their twenty twenty seven brand strategies, and how they are balancing their out of home formats, how much percentage they're giving to digital out of home, how much percentage are they giving to static out of home. We also see through the latest state of out of home reports that we can see from Outdoor Auditors, how those top 25 advertising brands and categories are splitting that percentage. But as you said, Samy, there's no rule as yet that can be found through research around what is that right percentage. And it's very much based on that brand strategy. But such a key episode to be publishing over this time when a lot of these brands and agencies are planning their out of home strategies and the out of home approaches for the year ahead. And thank you, Samy, for calling out. We are so excited to see the commentary and the debate on this and the conversation on this. Please comment on our YouTube video. Please engage and comment on our LinkedIn clips when we post this and we are live. We definitely want to hear everybody's perspective and opinions. And this episode is just to start that conversation in the industry. Digital Out of Home and Static Out of Home are such powerful mediums on their own and in their own right. But there is power in combining the two of them. Is amazing reach synergy. There is some research from Nielsen that does say when you combine the two, you can increase your reach by up to 30% versus using any format alone. That's just how the reach of these formats can compound and grow on incremental reach. But what I wanted to ask you, Samy, is to set the scene, you know, for the brands that are currently in these twenty twenty seven strats or deciding on their next year plans, you know, what would your advice be based on your experience and your perspective on how brands can find this balance between either spend shifts or number of sites or how they split design of home and static? And what should they be considering in this planning phase when they are approaching this thinking?

00:04:13 · Samy NaiduPlay from here

[00:04:13] S0: What you've just said now, the first approach is actually deciding on what exactly is the campaign objectives. And I think, you know, that is key in deciding what percentages or what ratios you're going to utilize in terms of digital and static. And I think, you know, if you look at it, if you if you put your campaign into either one of two boxes, and that's being, are you trying to achieve fame and awareness? Or are you trying to achieve a tactical promotion? And if it's fame and awareness, then you're gonna be heavily skewed towards a static execution, but obviously utilizing digital as a supporting medium in that last mile execution. If it's going to be a quick in and out tactical and promotional execution, I still believe that the top of mind relevant and always being in the environment with static is still required, but you will heavily weight that towards a digital asset execution in that respect. I think what we need to also look at is the characteristics of each of those platforms. What does static bring to the table? What does digital bring to the table? And I think all strategists and planners and buyers out there know that static brings the broad reach, the consistency, and the mental awareness of the brand in those commuter environments, in those communities. So it becomes top of mind. It becomes an household name in terms of just a brand, execution. But what digital adds to that is that agility to change messaging, whether it be daily, whether it be on a trigger based on whether on audience movements. It's delivering the right message at the right time in the right place, supporting a static campaign and brand building execution. And I think that's what's so key. And the bottom line of that message is they have to coexist. You can't look at doing them in isolation. Everyone says static is dead and and digital's taken over. I don't believe that's the case. Mm-mm. I think static is going to be with us for years to come. And the idea is how do they coexist? How do we bring them together? And how do we get them to complement an entire brand strategy? And I think that's what's so key.

00:06:45 · S1Play from here

[00:06:45] S1: Yeah, Samy, thank you so much for unpacking that. You've said so many things that I want to actually double click on because I think, you know, you touched now on saying like, there is this feeling of static is dead, digital is everything and I think you know I didn't want to age myself but I've been in the industry long enough to have seen the rise of digital and I remember when digital first hit the market there really was this feeling of everything needs to be pushed towards digital now because it was the new thing, it was the latest and clients all wanted to know how many screens are there, can we get on the screens, what is available. So there was that surgence in the market. I also want to flag two years ago, Tom Goddard made the call to awake the sleeping giant of static out of home. And there are so many exceptional campaigns that have been executed using static as a primary channel, which I think, we have definitely seen that, you know, a lot of brands prefer to be in static. Some prefer to be on digital, some see the mix. I think in your answer, you've kind of given those nuggets of around, you know, what is the creative messaging going to be? What are you trying to communicate? Are we being tactical? Are we brand building? And you said it that it's around the combination. It doesn't have to be all static or all digital. There is this synergy where you can actually weave in the different options available to bring the campaign to life. And in some cases you might lean more towards static for certain reasons. And in other cases, towards digital, just depending on what your strategy is and what you're actually wanting to achieve. I love that you have touched on what you have. It leads me to the question I wanted to ask you around creative. The creative and out of home is such a huge piece of execution. You could have done all the best planning and strategy in the world to get the best sites that you needed or your site mix. But you know, what is actually going to go onto those sites carry such a huge weight for how successful the campaign actually is. And I wanted to ask, what is your opinion on the job to be done with regards to the artwork from a static perspective and the artwork from a digital perspective? Should they be the same? Should they differ?

00:08:45 · S1, Samy NaiduPlay from here

If so, how, how can you get the best out of both of the mediums by using your creative messaging? [00:08:51] S0: What what I'd like to start off with on preparation to... Of this interview, something like really struck me and it almost lit a light bulb for me is looking at static and digital with the analogy of a news story or news article. And you almost take each of those saying, in a news article, you have a headline, and then you have the story behind it. And if you look at both static and digital, ideally, static is the headline, and digital is the content and the story behind it. [00:09:27] S1: I love that analogy, by [00:09:28] S0: the way. [00:09:28] S1: I have never heard it framed that way before. I love that.

00:09:28 · S1, Samy NaiduPlay from here

[00:09:28] S1: I have never heard it framed that way before. I love that. [00:09:31] S0: Okay. So so meaning that, you know, with your brand being in in a static format in these environments, it creates the big bold messaging. And digital then brings in the product and pricing. It brings in the information that supports what you're almost shouting about in your static advertising. And I think they again... So number one, the idea is that both of those messages need to still talk about the same strategy or the brand execution of what you need to achieve. But both of them do two different stories in terms of one, grabbing the attention, and the second, informing you on the... On what that attention is about. And I think that's what's so clear. And then it's about the locality as well. Your your large format static or static is multiple executions throughout the consumer or customer journey or the audience journey. And then the immediacy of either the closing the gap in terms of place of purchase or place of attribution is where you push heavily your digital content to support that static execution. And I think that's how it should be looked at and how it should be strategized and placed. And that's my opinion on that. But yeah, I think it works so well.

00:10:58 · S1Play from here

[00:10:58] S1: Yeah, it's such a such a simple way of looking at it that I think really breaks it down so nicely from a brand building perspective. You know, while you were speaking, some campaigns come to mind for me around that I loved seeing them in static out of home. For example, you know, we've recently had the lurries here in South Africa and the Vaseline campaign that was awarded with the Gogul rubbing the Vaseline onto the grandchild's face. I mean, the visual of that from a static perspective was so powerful. I didn't need to see a digital ad complementing that to understand exactly what was happening and I think for me to your analogy that was the headline right? This bold image that is very clear what is happening just from seeing the image and I think that in some cases like that was the perfect use for, static out of home. Another example, again, to reference the lurries that have taken place would be the Spotify ad free listening campaign where it was around, you know, having goosebumps and then you saw a break in somebody's arm where the ad break would have been and then the goosebumps continue. And that was executed on both static and digital and I think that was exceptional to see in that the visual as a static you could understand what was happening but then the story was told a bit further using digital out of home so I think that that's a really good example of your headline and then the actual story behind it. So I just wanted to share those that came to mind for Yeah.