‘DOOH campaigns ensure strong brand recall’

What role does outdoor medium play in your media planning?

We have always used outdoor media as a channel that augments our overall media plan. Outdoor media has always been a reminder medium for us and has worked in congruence with TV and radio campaigns. The idea has always been to increase visibility for reaching out to the consumer, thus increasing the overall recall of the campaign. We have also used outdoor as a strategic channel in certain geographies and then spread it to the entire region instead of a full-fledged campaign running all over the country; especially where the other mediums are less effective or tougher to crack.

What is your strategy while selecting the formats and locations in the outdoor?
Prime location, maximum footfall or impression and least clutter are what we look at in terms of choosing any outdoor property. Apart from choosing outdoors, in terms of its overall impression, positioning, unipoles, we try to derive maximum impact from every channel we use. Even in terms of outdoor, the idea is to choose locations that have good supply in terms of our stocks and potential to grow in terms of consumer demand.

Do you consider non-traditional OOH formats for advertising?
We recently tried out Digital OOH formats during Durga Puja in Kolkata. Durga Puja is the biggest congregation of people in Kolkata making it an amazing avenue to reach out to a very large set of people. Durga puja is a time when all brands fight for attention of the consumers, resulting in a huge clutter of media. We did not want to miss out on the opportunity to maximise our reach, but were also wary of getting lost in the clutter.

To reach out to a huge number of people on the streets, DOOH was the chosen medium. But with a new brand billboard every 10 meters, the clutter in this medium was the highest. For our category, building top of the mind recall was crucial, with respect to the upcoming festive season then. Fragrance is an abstract product and we want to bring it to life using contextual content related to each variant of the brand. Consumers should remember the brand name when they go for buying their next perfume or fragrance.

How do you instil creativity in your outdoor communications?
Brands need creativity in outdoor communications so as to break the clutter of the medium. In our case, as with our Digital OOH campaign, we have tried to be contextually relevant to the brand or variant as well as the occasion.

In the DOOH campaign that we ran during the Puja period, we had LED Displays, constantly playing curated content showcasing all variants. 102 LEDs were set up in 76 pandals across the city. We had 9 creatives of Wildstone and 6 variants of Secret Temptation on the display on the OOH. The content of the DOOH ad chosen was in line with current TVC campaign – “Log toh notice karenge” in order to create a better recall. Each variant showcased its key element in the content, while maintaining a consistency of freshness for the crowd.

In our brand Wildstone, the variant, “Aqua Fresh” had a water element with the product in the foreground; the product variant of Secret Temptation, “Romance” had a theme based on lavender, which is its cue colour.

The Wildstone “Red” variant symbolised a dash of ‘sindoor’ or vermillion so the background video was that of a red coloured explosion. These interventions helped us draw attention of the people visiting the pandals, and stood out among the many static outdoors. We also had on- ground activities and campaigns where people could take selfies and it was pushed later on other social mediums.

What challenges do you see while planning and executing the campaign?
Any campaign’s success depends on the execution as much as it does on planning. Route planning to determine the locations, constant recce and monitoring are the biggest challenges for everyone, we believe.

What changes would you like to see in the outdoor industry?
In a market like India, every medium is growing albeit at different rates, with digital being the highest and others at slightly lower rates. The biggest reason why brands prefer digital as a medium apart from reach or cost is the fact that digital is absolutely measurable and accountable. With more brands having tried out digital, we expect the same kind of measurability and accountability from the outdoor industry as well.

How open are you to experimenting with other formats such as digital outdoor?
We are very keen on experimenting with new formats, as is evident from our DOOH campaign. It is about finding the right opportunity and if that medium is the solution, then there is no reason why we wouldn’t try out a new medium.