Influencers, Iconic Locations, and Social Out of Home: Inside the Latest Research from The Harris Poll and OAAA
December 10, 2024
New research by The Harris Poll backed up what we at OUTFRONT have been saying for years: the synergy between out of home advertising and social media is lightning in a bottle for brands!
The OOH amplification study, just released by the OAAA last week, explored the effect that social elements in ad creative have on engagement, as well as the impact that influencer endorsements and iconic campaign locations make on activation and brand metrics.
How should brands leverage the awesome power of social out of home (#sOOH)? Here are five top takeaways.
To grow engagement, social handles and QR codes are low-hanging fruit.
Two out of three adults say they’ve seen OOH ads with social elements in them, and a majority say those elements make online engagement more likely. Social handles and QR codes were the most noticed (47% each) and most acted upon, with 43% following the handle provided and 43% scanning the QR code. This parity – not to mention the modest drop-off from notice to action – indicates that each of these simple but impactful tactics is table stakes for advertisers seeking online engagement.
Over 80% of survey respondents said that any product or service would benefit from an influencer endorsement, a data point that aligns nicely with the universality of out of home as a medium. 67% said influencer endorsements in OOH ads would drive them to take action. Ad placements in iconic locations like Times Square and the Sunset Strip were nearly as effective at 65%.
Influencer endorsements and iconic locations drive similar rates of website visitation, branded search, and social sharing – nearly one in two for the first two KPIs and one in three for the third – but a more eye-opening comparison is between the new Harris Poll data and Comscore’s landmark 2022 digital activation study.
Against that baseline, influencer endorsements and iconic locations showed lifts of up to 19 points in website visitation, 13 points in product purchases, 12 points in social sharing, and 7 points in branded search. These strategies are needle movers!
Iconic locations and influencer endorsements both impact brand metrics – but not in identical ways.
Influencer endorsements and iconic OOH locations don’t just enhance engagement rates – they also improve brand health metrics. Nearly half said that influencer endorsements would make them see a product as being higher in quality and more trustworthy, with about one in three saying they made a product seem more memorable and desirable.
While iconic locations made roughly the same impact on the perception of a brand as high-quality, influencers scored nine points higher in terms of inspiring trust. Iconic locations, on the other hand, were three to five points stronger on measures of memorability and desirability.
To sum it up: people nurture trust, places emphasize prestige.
The same audiences over-index across the board.
One throughline in this study was that the same demographic groups over-indexed for social responsiveness in all its forms. Black and Hispanic audiences, Gen Z and Millennials, and those living in cities of over a million people consistently outpaced the rest on every measure.
Major city dwellers are most likely to notice social elements in ads, the most likely to share out of home ads, and the most likely to be moved to action by ads in iconic locations. Gen Z respondents are most likely to be moved to act by an influencer endorsement; they are also the most receptive to having their opinion shifted by either influencers or iconic locations.
These insights are just another proof point that out of home campaigns powered by audiences are optimized for success.
The most shareworthy OOH ads offer something of value.
So what is the Rosetta Stone of social out of home? How do you prime a campaign for virality? First and foremost, entertainment value is what fuels the phenomenon. Teachable moments lead to social engagement too. Cultural relevance was another factor that at least one in three people said would make them likely to share. And of course, special offers are always popular.
An ad that expands the audience’s horizons gives them a tiny crumb of social capital for being “in the know” enough to pay it forward. Think of it this way: a socially successful campaign provides joy, humor, knowledge, or something of tangible value to its audience in exchange for access to that audience’s audience.
Want to socialize your next campaign and activate its audience? Let’s give them something to talk about! Contact OUTFRONT today.
Author: Jay Fenster, Marketing Manager @ OUTFRONT
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