Digital out-of-home (DOOH) campaigns with PodMe

Digital out-of-home campaigns are becoming more and more common. And what with ever more traditional out-of-home signage being upgraded to digital, expect their number to rise ever further. But what’s the secret to great DOOH campaigns?

Today the number of assets and channels a single campaign has to cover is ever increasing. Therefore, it is essential that marketing teams are able to create and control digital out-of-home ads as they would any other digital channel, whether that is display or social in order to be successful.

One such brand at the cutting edge of effective multi-channel campaigns, is Scandinavian audio subscription service PodMe. We spoke to Sebastian Lifvin, Marketing Manager at PodMe about how he and his team used Bannerflow to create and control a recent multi-channel campaign for his brand.

How did this campaign perform across different channels? What channels other than DOOH did you advertise across?

Sebastian Lifvin: I’ve been focusing heavily on Google, Facebook, and Schibsted’s publication network. Schibsted is our current owner, having purchased us fully in the summer, so we are using their channels like Aftonbladet and Svenska Dagbladet (two of the biggest publications in Sweden).

We have dipped our toes into out-of-home and radio but nothing in terms of digital billboards. So, using our basic platform of Google, Facebook and Aftonbladet – where we run banners through Bannerflow – we wanted to take the same campaign to a wider audience through digital out-of-home placements across Stockholm and Gothenburg.

We were pleased with the campaign. Of course, adding digital out-of-home to our marketing mix is new for us so we have nothing to compare it with. But, we’re really happy with how it performed. Plus, the use of Bannerflow within the campaign has been a tremendous help.

Which design challenges were the most satisfying to solve when creating a range of campaign creatives? How did using Bannerflow help?

Sebastian Lifvin: We have been using Bannerflow for a couple of months for display ads on Schibsted and Google. For the DOOH placements, we simply took the same material, same look and feel, adapted it and pushed it to a digital out-of-home provider.

Using a single tool (Bannerflow) is a tremendous time saver and it ensures our ad creatives look good cross channels.

Did you make any updates to the live ad content?

Sebastian Lifvin: The campaign ran for a week and pretty much remained the same throughout. But, just knowing that we could update our digital out-of-home campaign, like we do for say Google or Aftonbladet, was reassuring.

Were the creative assets for this campaign custom built or were they repurposed from your existing brand library?

Sebastian Lifvin: We create assets on a campaign to campaign basis. Usually we have one podcast that we want to highlight. A podcast is a bit like a brand in itself, so we use the brand assets from the podcasts. Basically, this means any images from the podcasts, plus our own PodMe brand assets on top of it to let people know that you can listen on PodMe.

Did the context of where your DOOH ads were to be placed influence your campaign creatives?

Sebastian Lifvin: Most definitely. We thought this through thoroughly. Knowing that we would reach a wider audience than normal, we needed material that could grab people’s attention going through the subway or going about their day to day business. Therefore, it was important to use attention grabbing material which would catch people’s attention quickly. And we were fortunate to have a star like Mia Skäringer fronting our campaign, as she’s a well known face which would be widely recognised across channels.

In general how do you tackle the design process of producing campaigns?

Sebastian Lifvin: We have our ad agency, as well as me and my colleague who manage the production in-house. The process starts with me and my colleague, as production manager, looking at the campaign, what can we do, what assets can we have in use?

Then we send the brief to our ad agency who creates the campaigns directly in Bannerflow. They then send links in Bannerflow for us to view the ad creatives in real time.

Some campaigns I actually create myself! I’m not a skilled graphic designer but Bannerflow is so easy to use! In fact some of our campaigns that are currently running live were created by me. (And that says a lot about how easy the tool is to use!)

Since you began using Bannerflow, what have been the most radical shifts in how you work creating ads?

Sebastian Lifvin: We were running banner campaigns on Google and Schibsted prior to using Bannerflow and now display advertising is much easier than what we were doing before.

Before, we were using the Adobe suite and they are great but the 360 way of using Bannerflow, starting with the scaling of banners, is simply amazing.

And then there’s the bonus of real-time updates through using HTML5 banners, as well as how easy it is to follow-up and see live ad stats in the tool. In fact, I use that everyday to see how our campaigns are performing.

We’re still working on improving our live tweaking and optimisation but that is coming. But being able to look at the CTR and see which banners perform best in terms of reach is a great way of proof checking what Google and other platforms are telling us about the numbers.

Are there any Bannerflow features that have helped you take your ad campaigns to a higher level?

Sebastian Lifvin: To be honest, there are plenty but, for me, it’s the scaling and the ease of use of the platform for publishing across channels and devices. Create one ad with the right look and feel, and then you just basically push a button and you have 20 assets. That is a tremendous help and time saver!

We haven’t tried using the real-time feeds yet but that is something we’re looking at, so to automate our processes even more.

It feels like I’m just scratching the surface of how we can use Bannerflow. Every week it seems I am discovering a feature we should really use. There is a lot of stuff to discover!

Take the next step in digital out-of-home

Digital out-of-home will become ever more important once the world opens up again. Therefore, having the right advertising technology will be key to making it a success.

If you would like to know more about how you can use Bannerflow to create your multi-channel campaigns, then please get in touch or request a demo.