Activation versus OOH: Clearly defined roles
By M4G Bureau - December 12, 2013
Nabendu Bhattacharya, Founder-Member and MD, Milestone Brandcom, tells Outdoor Asia how Activation can play an effective role in influencing consumer's purchase decision.
Shift in OOH budget towards Activation There is no shift in budgets towards Activation. Brands decide on Activation basis the communication need or purpose. OOH serves the purpose of creating awareness along with TV, press and radio. Activation on the other hand helps in creating dialogues between the product and the consumer. Hence in the initial stage, while OOH builds awareness, Activation helps creating product experience and trial before a purchase decision basis the product experience.
Comparing Effectiveness Activation certainly generates immediate leads because of one to one communication and in that sense it's effective, but the cost per conversion works out expensive. However brand awareness is a different function which needs help from other communication channels viz TV, Press, Outdoor, Radio and Digital.
Any and every brand or product that needs demonstrate product feature and generate trial in real time with touch and feel experience needs to go through Activation. Efficiency is a function of budget and Activation is always more expensive than an awareness building media channel.
Activation replacing traditional OOHI would say again that both the communication channels serve different functions, hence one is not a threat to the other.
Challenges in Activation as against traditional OOH OOH can be scaled faster at a much lower cost, but it lacks efficiency due to unavailability of unified research . But Activation is a more effective mode of communication as it delivers leads , direct sales and one to one product experience with consumers . However, cost per conversion is expensive and scalability is an issue simultaneously across markets