Revolutionize Your Advertising Campaigns: Why Digital Screen Technology Is a Must-Have in 2024
Picture yourself cruising through the bustling cityscape, surrounded by majestic billboards stretching towards the sky, each vying for your attention. Now, envision a captivating and one-of-a-kind visual that springs to life, effortlessly captivating your senses. You find yourself eager to grab your phone and Google the brand responsible.
Research from OOH Today shows that out-of-home (OOH) advertisements have significantly higher ad recall among consumers over live and streaming television, podcasts, radio, print, and online ads. This includes both printed and digital OOH formats.
Research also shows that around 82% of the viewers could recall the digital out-of-home advertisements (DOOH) they saw over a month ago. Shopify further reports a remarkable conversion lift of 94% for merchants who incorporate 3D content into their shops.
These strong numbers indicate it may be time for your business to reconsider its traditional advertising methods and embrace the more immersive, dynamic, possibilities that OOH and DOOH present.
However, numbers aren’t the only thing that makes OOH and DOOH stand out; they also offer a plethora of benefits: building brand awareness, attracting customers, and strengthening the rest of your marketing efforts.
Massive Brand Awareness
In an interview with Forbes, Kevin Bartanian, founder of KEVANI and OOH expert, discusses how digital screen technology empowers brands to create buzz and outshine their competition. He highlights that OOH advertising creates brand awareness and keeps those brands top of mind. A study in the Journal of Customer Behavior also supports this claim.
When multisensory and realistic visuals are involved, it’s easier for the audience to remember your product or brand. The importance gets magnified when we take Gen-Z and Millennials into account. As Prosper Insights & Analytics survey showed, only 10.8% of the Gen-Z population reads print media. Additionally, an overwhelming majority of them prefer OOH advertisements as opposed to online ads as reported in a Kantar Millward Brown study.
The numbers give more reasons to use awe-inspiring 3D billboards to convey your message to consumers and create a lasting connection with them.
Higher Consumer Engagement
Nielsen report highlights that OOH (including 3D Digital Billboards) is 4x more effective than TV, Radio, and Print ads for driving online activity. It has also been shown that brands investing in this type of advertising are winning the game with an impressive return on investment (ROI).
For instance, Adidas reported a 4x rise in engagement and an 11-second average viewing time when using 3D viewing techniques. Similarly, Google’s 3D Swirl ads achieve 8x higher engagement rates than 2D or static ads.
Moreover, in the first quarter (Q1) of 2023, OOH revenue increased by 1%, reaching $1.82 billion, surpassing Q1 of 2019. Digital OOH sales rose by 4.3%, and the billboard category grew by 1.9%, almost doubling the overall OOH growth rate.
Anna Bager, President and CEO, Out of Home Advertising Association of America (OAAA) said that despite a challenging ad marketplace in Q1, “... our medium is well-positioned to connect with consumers at the most critical moments to drive awareness and engagement, which is why OOH continues to thrive.”
Statista estimates that annual revenue from 3D advertising will increase by 3x in 2025. The surge in revenues makes anamorphic billboards the obvious choice for impactful advertising in today’s competitive landscape.
Real-time Updates
In the ever-evolving advertising landscape, digital signage displays emerge as a competitive differentiator by delivering thorough real-time information. In the modern age where consumers no longer respond to print ads and 2D advertising media, and the cost of client acquisition is becoming more expensive, digital signage becomes pivotal to expanding your client base.
For example, Expoze's brilliant experiment compared two photos of the exact same billboard in Piccadilly Circus, London. The experiment concluded that the image taken from the recent Meta Quest 2 3D billboard received 80% of the visual attention whereas the same billboard shown with 2D advertisements only received 51%. It is clear from the data that audiences respond better to this sensory experience rather than traditional advertising campaigns.
Blunt Action's Digital Advertising Campaigns
We have partnered with big names over the years to help them leverage the power of this hyper-realistic digital technology and create some visually pleasing 3D billboards. You can read more about these 3D billboards here and here.
Recently, we teamed up with Paramount Pictures and Coca-Cola to create fascinating and spectacle-worthy digital billboards that left the audience in awe.
Paramount Pictures - Dungeons and Dragons
For Paramount Pictures, our goal was to create a stunning anamorphic 3D billboard for the worldwide launch of Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. As a leading OOH and 3D animation studio, we wanted to immerse our audience in the fantasy realm of the game.
Crafting a hyper-realistic 3D animation was not the only challenge. We also had to adapt our creative process to meet the different billboard requirements worldwide. This involved tailoring the design up to 15 iterations for each billboard.
The result was a consistent, awe-inspiring, OOH campaign featured on billboards across 8 countries and taking the world by storm. Our anamorphic 3D animation allowed the audience to visually interact with the cinematic format of the iconic game.
Projects like these are the reason we do what we do. It fuels our passion to push the boundaries, meet complex challenges head-on, and deliver unique visual experiences that exceed expectations.
Coca-Cola - Masterpiece
In the Q1 of 2023, Coca-Cola was among the top 10 advertisers based on their OOH spending. This isn’t new, as Coca-Cola aggressively spends $4 billion annually to maintain its brand recognition.
However, the brand’s eagerness to make every penny count drives them to experiment with the latest technology to create visually appealing ad campaigns. One such example is the 1993 Always Coca-Cola ad campaign featuring computer-animated polar bears and northern lights, which remains a well-known marketing campaign of all time.
Coke made history again in 2017 when it unveiled the world’s first and largest 3D robotic billboard which was nothing short of a remarkable feat. Since then, Coke is really invested in upping its advertising game.
In 2023, Coca-Cola raised the bar again, this time in partnership with Blunt Action with their stunning artwork for Vermeer's "Girl with a Pearl Earring". This 3D billboard activated at São Paulo's Guarulhos International Airport, was part of their new global campaign “Masterpiece” (rightfully so). Coke wanted a playful addition to its advertising arsenal - an ad that hits a sweet spot of vintage art, reality, and tech and appeals to the niche audience. We helped them create exactly that.
We led the direction and production of this campaign - incorporating JCDecaux's innovative "3D Deep Iconic" technology, animation, GFX, and VFX to bring "Girl with a Pearl Earring" to life, seamlessly blending the digital and physical worlds.
Ted Ketterer, the brand's director of marketing for Brazil remarked “Promoting yet another new experience between the virtual world and physical, mixing works of art with artificial intelligence, is yet another way of showing that it is possible to create magical moments with Coca-Cola in people's lives.”
The ad was a success and highlights how we leave no stone unturned when it comes to making your vision a reality and redefining the possibilities of immersive advertising experiences for you and your audience.
Bottom Line…
Digital screen technologies are dynamic, engaging, and immersive - all the things traditional advertising methods are not. They reach your audience at the right time, forge deep connections, stand out in the crowded advertising landscape, and make your brand memorable.
As Ethan Jakab, co-founder of Blunt Action told Time Out, “These immersive experiences are the future because they step outside the box of traditional billboard advertising and open a new door of creative possibilities.”
We at Blunt Action love bringing your ideas to life through memorable 3D animations that bridge the digital world to the real world. Brands like Coca-Cola and Paramount Pictures have experienced the transformation of their presence, driving unparalleled success and leaving a lasting impression. Your brand can also make the human experience its focal point of interest and achieve remarkable results.
Please reach out to us today to create human-centric advertising campaigns that live in the viewer’s mind and drive your profits to new heights!