Can Corporate Public Messaging Campaigns Make an Impact?

Consumers today are driven by factors beyond price and convenience. According to CSR Education, 73% of consumers are willing to pay more for products from socially responsible brands. For brands looking to connect with and capture these consumers, effective corporate messaging around social responsibility, brand ethos, and key product facts aligned with their consumers’ interests is a critical component of marketing strategy.

Out of home, as a media proven to build consumer-brand trust, is an ideal medium for these sorts of campaigns, pairing mass reach messaging with brand safety and proven efficacy. Companies of all types from D2C consumer goods to energy industries have turned to JCDecaux to execute such strategies- including current campaigns from Energy Transfer and Coca Cola across our airport advertising networks.

Passengers walk past TSA area and JCDecaux advertising screens with Coca Cola ads

Corporate Social Responsibility As Advertising Strategy

Coca-Cola takes their corporate social responsibility (CSR) and messaging around it seriously- demonstrated by two of their latest campaigns in JCDecaux airports. In Boston Logan International Airport, Coca-Cola is dominating digital screens across the airport to share the impact of their local bottling strategy: a whopping $874M contributed to the Massachusetts economy. This focus on their local commitment, despite a global presence, reflects the recent gravitation of U.S. consumers from global leaders to local brands (InnResearch).

In addition to perceptions that local goods are fresher and higher quality, 55% of consumers state they prefer local brands to support regional economies and reduce environmental impact. With these sentiments guaranteed to have a direct financial impact on performance for large brands like Coca-Cola, this campaign is a smart way to translate business model into consumer support. Furthermore, the effect of these efforts is likely to translate into increased organic word-of-mouth promotion by consumers, amplifying the effect of both initial CSR efforts and marketing dollars.

Passengers walk past prestige digital screen in Houston Hobby Airport displaying Ceedee Lamb on Coca Cola Body Armor ad

Why Brands Should be Responsive to Consumer Concerns

Another campaign from Coca-Cola for subsidiary Body Armor leverages a local celebrity to communicate a core product benefit with Texas consumers. Communicating that their product uses ‘no artificial dyes’ is a direct response to growing consumer demand for eliminating synthetic food dyes in U.S. foods. According to Civic Science, 76% of U.S. adults are concerned about food dyes- and these concerns have a direct economic impact, with 29% of consumers reporting that these ingredients affect their purchases most of the time, and 20% ‘about half the time.’

Airport advertising is an ideal medium for this specific message: in addition to the mass reach and trust baked into airport advertising campaigns, a key demographic supporting the drive to eliminate artificial dyes is high-income earners, an audience overrepresented in the airport environment. Connecting this message to Ceedee Lamb, a star NFL player on the Dallas Cowboys, for their Texas-wide campaign is designed to further amplify this message. Among other impacts (Is Celebrity Branding Worth the Hype?), celebrity endorsement is proved to increase sales by ~4% ‘almost immediately.’

Passengers walk under large format digital screen in IAH displaying Energy Transfer advertising

Selling Stocks with Key Facts on Out of Home

Another company leaning into corporate messaging for their airport advertising campaign is Energy Transfer, a leading oil and gas company. Their creatives, spread across Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, and Boston, focus on educating consumers with the core message that 96% of their everyday products come from oil and gas. According to Conductor research on educational brand content, consumers who engage with early-stage educational content are 131% more likely to buy from a brand and their opinions of the brand as trustworthy increase with time after engaging with this content.

By educating the traveling public on just how much of their everyday goods are made from oil and gas, Energy Transfer is equipping American consumers to make smart decisions about their investment option. This strategy is geared towards earning trust and establishing market authority in addition to driving investment; Forbes reports that buyers who see a brand as having helped them understand their choices are more likely to be brand-loyal. From increasing awareness of corporate social responsibility efforts to responding to consumer concerns and sharing educational messages, airport OOH is an exceptional medium for reaching a mass audience of captive and receptive consumers.