Drawing consumers closer to your brand

This post is sponsored by Brandavision under the Futurist series.

It’s “me” time for marketing communications in 2019. Last year was an engaging and interactive year for out-of-home advertising with offers of on-ground interaction for patrons on LED screens to serve the current tech-savvy trend, and injecting fun elements into advertising to create the right mood and desired shopping experience for shoppers. This new burst of engagement has enabled brands to understand consumers on a deeper level through the data collected, and subsequently, create personalised content that continues to keep them interested.

OOH is no longer limited to just one location, but integrates with social media for viral mileage that will be seen around the world. Gone are the days of hard prints. With most urban dwellers now owning a smartphone, technological advancement allows users to scan static visuals or digital screens using their smart devices for instant access to advertisers’ websites or microsites for further engagement. Brands are increasingly using large digital screens to connect with their consumers, especially on special occasions. This allows users to post birthday wishes, anniversary celebrations, wedding proposals, and the like, on large public screens, bringing brands closer to you.

However, handling giant LED screens comes with unique challenges. High maintenance costs aside, the strategic location of the screen given its niche demand with its giant size, and the unique content are factors to be considered for the success of OOH. A new generation of consumers are fast in adopting new technologies, and this give us immense opportunities to be creative and explore new ways to help our clients engage with their consumers. While educating consumers to use the new technology may take time and additional resources such as more retail staff on-ground to assist audiences, once audiences get the hang of it, they are glued. The engagement, when executed aptly, often leaves audiences with a lasting and positive impression of the brand, resulting in higher brand recall. Engagements that drive traffic back to the retail stores present more opportunities for sales and widen the consumer base for that brand. For the clients, adopting new OOH technology also means adjusting their operation to fit the trend. For example, a sudden surge of traffic to the retail store during the campaign period requires the retailer to beef up its operation team to handle store purchases or reward redemptions brought in via the OOH engagement.

We need to work intimately with clients to derive out-of-the-box ideas and create customised content to market brands. The first media owner to put top-notch luxury brands such as Bvlgari, Chopard, Audemars Piguet, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Tiffany & Co, Dior and Cartier on OOH, Brandavision has crafted many successful campaigns over the years. We look forward to seeing more of these top-ranking luxury brands joining the realm in the near future.

Our giant LED screen at Pavilion Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s premier shopping destination, has motivated us to leverage on this to increase the number of impactful LEDs moving forward, reaching out to the intended audience at the best settings in the most strategic locations. With everything moving at a fast pace these days, marketers are actively seeking bolder and newer marketing solutions to wow audiences. The marketing solutions offered by Brandavision include engagement-based solutions such as interactive gaming, live messaging with real-time engagement on site, augmented reality, visual reality as well as gesture-detection interactions. Our large screens also stream live events. Data analytic reports are provided to identify and craft strategies that effectively meet the goals of marketers. Having said that, we are ready to take the lead and embrace new and the latest technologies to help our clients get ahead of the game.

The writer is Suzanne Chai, director, business, Brandavision. The article first appeared in A+M’s The Futurist print edition.