The average espresso-fuelled New Yorker has never been short on opinions, nor the desire to express them, so Dove's 2004 Campaign for Real Beauty was on to a clear winner when it posted an image of 96-year-old Irene Sinclair on the first ever interactive billboard in Times Square and asked passers by to cast a mobile phone vote on whether she was 'wrinkled' or 'wonderful'.
The cosmetics company was asking consumers to challenge their own perceptions of beauty in a campaign that simultaneously challenged marketers' perception of the role outdoor can play in the marketing mix.
Perceived wisdom has always held that outdoor is not a responsive medium and that it relies upon a scattergun approach.
It has been considered intrusive, something that chisels messages into our subconscious as a result of its ubiquity, but also successful, because it provides us with a welcome diversion at those times when we are forced to pause and contemplate our surroundings.
Certainly, for many years outdoor was one or both of those things.
Increasingly, however, it is being used as a response driver in its own right, especially in certain markets, such as insurance or telephony, where consumers are directed to websites or call centres.
The notion that outdoor falls at the hurdle of targeting has been disproved by a number of businesses that have used outdoor to reach infinitely niche audiences. For example, Abbey National used outdoor to target small business owners in London, and received over 500 text responses to its campaign.
Outdoor also has a halo effect when used in conjunction with other media, something demonstrated by our own work for AXA Insurance. We identified hothouse areas where we could target the right profile of prospects and used a combination of transport and roadside formats to uplift response for other more traditionally responsive media.
Outdoor is also shaping up to provide a truly interactive brand experience. In the case of Dove's Times Square ad, votes cast were also displayed on the board beneath the model's image.
Coca-Cola, never one to do anything by halves, erected a 32m by 7m neon billboard in Piccadilly Circus capable of responding to the weather and interacting with passers-by.
Technology exists that has the capability to drive outdoor even further. Wireless transfer of information, going by names such as Hypertag and Bluecasting, means that outdoor can elicit immediate responses, especially through mobile phones.
EMI used Titan Outdoor’s Transvision screens in London to run its Bluecast campaign to launch Coldplay’s X&Y album. Using this technology they were able to transmit Coldplay sound excerpts, video clips and never-seen before video interviews to commuters' mobiles and laptops. By the end of the campaign over 13,000 requests for the material had been logged, which of course also provided EMI with some invaluable contact information.
Various film clients have also used this technology to allow passers-by to point their mobile phones at the poster and find out where it's showing with one click – or even to book and buy tickets right there and then at the cinema nearest to them.
If all of this fails to whet your appetite for the future, think of this. You're walking down the street and see a poster showing a model who is wearing a pair of earrings you like. A click of your mobile tells you where you can buy them, or, with another click, you purchase a pair that will be delivered to your home. That's what I call impulse buying.
All of this offers the potential for shopping itself to be revolutionised. Clever use of outdoor combined with the right technology can transform the pavement into another retail space. If you think you know outdoor, it's time to think again. Thanks to the fully interactive potential major brands are exploiting, it's no longer a case of just watching this space.