CBS Outdoor to exploit success of Look for Longer ads

CBS Outdoor is to launch more consumer-facing campaigns in the new year after hailing the success of its cryptic ‘Look for Longer’ tube challenge.

LookforLonger
The popularity of the outdoor campaign has paved the way for more consumer-facing ads, says the brand.

The media owner says the competition, which challenged participants to name the 75 London tube stations featured on a poster and submit their answers to a campaign site, has forced advertisers to take “prolonged engagement” with adverts on the Underground network more seriously.

CBS Outdoor is now planning to launch more consumer-facing campaigns in the future to enhance the level of insight it has on consumers as well as raise brand awareness. Outdoor advertising companies traditionally just run b2b campaigns to showcase outdoor to advertisers.

The ‘Look for Longer’ competition ran between 3 October and 11 November and prompted over 7,000 posts on Facebook and Twitter during this period and reached 170 countries, the business claims.

Nearly all (99.8 per cent) of the conversations surrounding the challenge on social networks were positive, according to social media monitoring tool Sysmos and the business says this helped boost the campaign’s earned media value to £238,619.

Additionally, around 297,200 people visited the campaign site to play the game and of those 30 per cent were from mobile devices.

Speaking to Marketing Week, Simon Harrington, marketing director at CBS Outdoor UK, says the campaign has been so well received that the business is now able to demonstrate to advertisers for the first time how effective social and mobile channels are at amplifying awareness for traditional outdoor campaigns.

He adds: “I think there’s a learning in the campaign for advertisers about how they get their earned media from outdoor campaigns. Look for Longer was a lightweight campaign compared to the inventory our advertisers normally use because we wanted to demonstrate the power of that audience and how they can spread your message whether its through word of mouth or on social media.”

“Where some of our competitors are still talking about panels and the infrastructure of their inventory to advertisers, it’s all about the audience for us because ultimately that’s what marketing directors want to hear about”, adds Harrignton.

CBS Outdoor worked with agencies Clinic and 1000heads to create the campaign.

Separately, CBS pledged to launch more marketing initiatives to promote London to advertisers, adding that brands are starting to launch more city-centric marketing campaigns.

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