Advertisers on our Chicago Digital Network of billboards are maintaining consumer interest with creative variants that help to tell a story, uplift their narrative, demonstrate value, and above all, sustain meaningful engagement.
An online study on consumer responses to out-of-home messages from SocialVibe found that while about half of survey respondents report they would continue to notice an advertisement after one month, only a quarter report that they would notice the same ad after three months.
Meanwhile, a report from Neuro-Insight and QMS found that advertisements with creative evolution achieve 38% higher impact after five days. These findings speak to the importance of avoiding creative wear-out, or the phenomena of a campaign’s impact gradually diminishing because of increased predictability.
This means that in order to maintain a high impact over an extended period, campaigns should include multiple messages and varying creative designs with common branding that will ultimately help to keep consumers engaged for longer and improve message retention and recall.
Storytelling is just one of the ways in which advertisers can utilize multi-creatives, whereby conveying part of a ‘story’ and leaving viewers awaiting the next chapter, the advertiser inadvertently boosts consumer engagement while increasing brand awareness.
Students, alumni, and employees were given a chance to have their own ideas featured on our billboards in the case of the University of Illinois Chicago, effectively raising awareness with simple messages that create a multifaceted depiction of the university’s value.
The fact of the matter is that consumers are more inclined to engage with brands they feel a connection to, and storytelling helps brands prove their value by showcasing the problems they help to solve.
By including several versions of a creative within an OOH campaign, an advertiser can effectively maximize the impact of their ad spend. This is especially true with network formats, where a consumer is more likely to be exposed to multiple creative variants and gain a more in-depth understanding of a brand’s intended message.
Our large-format billboards are ideal for these types of campaigns, as their digital screens provide an optimal platform for turnkey campaign activation, meaning that evolving creatives can be easily shared over the course of a campaign’s flight.
The truth is that every brand has a collection of stories and ideas waiting to be shared. By leveraging OOH’s inherently credible and high-reaching platforms with multi-creatives, advertisers can successfully prolong a campaign’s initial spark and offer consumers a thorough depiction of their brand’s value.
For additional examples of storytelling, creative wear-out, digital benefits, and other recommended out-of-home guidelines, we recommended referencing our new Creative Best Practices brochure.