Beyond The Billboard
00:09:24 · Jay Young
[00:09:24] S0: It's incredibly tough. Think, we, you first off have to be really clear on the objective. I think a lot of the time when it comes to a big creative out of home idea, clients want to do so much with it that we have to go, okay, what's the primary objective? What's the secondary? And then I think at a very base level, we have to be very honest with ourselves. Marketers are increasingly scrutinized. They're having to justify spend into CFOs, budgets being cut left, right, and center. And you've got this challenge where you haven't to justify a creative idea based on numbers. So we will always assist clients with that. So it's how many people are likely to see this? How many people are likely to engage with with the activation? How many people or how long will the average person engage with the activation for? Those kind of like basic metrics that will get you to a place where you can at least compare that versus the spend versus either other creative ideas in the outcome space or versus other ways to spend that money in other channels. That's the base layer. But the thing that I'm increasingly working with our teams to help our clients with is then talking about the next layer and it's you cannot disregard the impact that have an emotional kind of response and or driving emotional response from can make. And that's the bit that we've got to really make sure is being delivered in that sell in. And the sad truth is you can't preempt what that emotional impact is. So we're very lucky Grand Visual is a part of the talent group. So our effectiveness team have huge number of prior case studies that we can at least kind of pile in and say, look, in similar situations, this is how people felt. This is how we direct the response from feeling, oh, that was fun to wow, that was exciting. And is how they thought about the brand afterwards. And then really encouraging the clients early doors to invest in creative effectiveness and to test it and ask the questions. And that's not easy again because if you're already spending production money on the activation and then you just find them effective. But if you've got a client client that has a real desire to do this on the regular, then that has to be a part of the process. You can't just assume that it's delivering the work that it needs to.
00:11:47 · Jay Young, Kirsty Carlson
You've gotta constantly test, constantly prove and build that confidence. And all of the clients that do invest, that confidence builds and builds and builds and you see more and more and more work come out of them. And when it comes to it's just really tricky because realistically trying to isolate one particular experience in that whole model, it is very hard. And it's about, I think if the results come out and it's not quite what you're expecting, it's being able to go in that room and actively defend and discuss the challenges because you can't just take the results on face value. [00:12:24] S2: Yeah.
00:12:24 · Kirsty Carlson, Livia Brown
[00:12:24] S2: Yeah. [00:12:25] S1: Yeah. I think that's a great answer that covers quite a lot of different aspects. Think at times, you know, even getting a client to agree to do an extension or a mold or some LED lights, some very simple basic innovation can be tricky. Like you say, it's over and above the media cost, but I love how you've outlined the very different ways to look at that. I think another piece that really stood out for me was around whether you are the production partner or the media owner or the agency, make sure that you're documenting the innovation that's being done properly so that if there is a time to create case studies, you know, Grand Visual work on so many different brands. You guys do some amazing work for Pepsi. Specsavers is one of your clients. You've done work with Tesco and Uber Eats for their recent campaign that you're able to almost go into the archive and put out like, look, all of these brands are doing exceptionally well. And these case studies can show you that they are results, but you have to have documented those campaigns properly to actually be able to show that.
00:13:19 · Jay Young
[00:13:19] S0: You do. And I think also as a business, sometimes you've got to invest in that yourself. You've got to believe in the process and you've got to say, you know what, we're going to take a hit on some margin here. We're gonna make sure that we show this client just how impactful this was. So we we do regularly try to do that at Grand Visual. The other thing for me I think as well, particularly with outdoor is making sure that you bring the client to see it in person. There's a huge difference between them seeing the video and the photo in the show reel afterwards and being in there and go, oh, wow. The scale, like you can just see the look on their face suddenly it's all pride and that goes some way to at least showing the emotion that we're driving in the audience too. And you can't replicate that really through a video.
00:14:03 · Kirsty Carlson
[00:14:03] S2: Yeah. There's something that you said early on as well, Jay, that really stuck with me and reminded me of an episode where we had the head of media from Beiersdorf, South Africa, Tenille with us. And she spoke about coming from a digital background. So social media, digital media now into across media above the line. And she spoke about how test and learn is being done so much more in the digital media landscape than it's done in the above the line media landscape and the likes of out of home etc. And what you were saying, Ulan, is that there needs to be that test and learn when it comes from a creative point of view. And I don't think it's done enough in the out of home space, particularly locally. And I think that's a big call out is that, you know, test and learn what creatives in messaging is resonating with your audience in the different environments, the different contexts, in the different locations, and actually finding what is the right fit. And I know that can be a cost outlay in the beginning, but ultimately, you know, you can reap the rewards if you learn from those and be able to, you know, course change or change the creative approach based on those learnings. I think that's the first thing. And I think the second thing that you and Liv were talking about around research around out of home and local case studies and you know, local brand lift studies after a big event or a big out of home campaign and actually investing in that. I think the biggest thing for us locally is we it's not done often enough. A lot of the time there's references to a lot of the global work, which is amazing. But I think locally from a South African and Africa point of view, there's definitely a need or drive, hopefully we'll see that come forward in 2027 for a lot more of those campaign based studies, creative effectiveness studies, etcetera, for out of home for clients specifically.
00:15:41 · Jay Young, Kirsty Carlson, S3
[00:15:41] S0: I think the other thing that we are spending a lot of time this year doing is actually pulling in people that you'd perhaps consider our competitors and saying, don't we do these studies together? Because realistically, we're not all competing with each other in outdoor. We're actually competing with other channels. So it's it's coming together and saying, actually, let's work on proving that this kind of activation in this kind of environment works really well because that go, that sings for all of us as opposed to seeing that as kind of like a competitive challenge. [00:16:18] S2: I love that, that co funded research, right? Like a rising tide lifts all ships and co funded research that can motivate and underscore the power of the medium. And ultimately that can help move the needle of moving spends from other mediums to out of home if everybody works together for the common good of the medium. The piece here that you've also hit the nail on the head on is that we need to be focusing on this co funded research locally for out of home and to showcase its true power. [00:16:45] S3: Provantage, digital innovators at scale. With a national network of over 4,000 screens, we reach more than 50,000,000 people on the move in the most high value environments across South Africa. Flexible, impactful, contextually relevant. Our real time audience measurement ensures precise targeting and transparent results. As we build a programmatically enabled digital network, we're shaping a more connected future for brands. Redefining out of home.