Stella Artois uses Waterloo Station screen in ‘experimental’ real-time outdoor push
Stella Artois has taken over the UK’s largest digital screen at Waterloo Station to push real-time content around its Wimbledon sponsorship to commuters in a bid to deepen its understanding of mixing outdoor and digital.
The beer brand is running the experiential drive for the next two weeks targeting tennis fans and those actually heading to the tournament via the station. It yields a “number of firsts” for the brand in the outdoor space, according to the brewer, that see it look to create “more of a customer journey” around the tournament bringing in-store, digital and outdoor closer together.
Real-time updates from the event as well moderated #herestoperfection Twitter posts from fans are being fed into the screen. Images from the Stella Instagram account will also appear to commuters, while mobile data is being sued to schedule relevant, targeted ad copy to display.
Fans can also take part in a short tennis quiz on iPads at a miniature court underneath the screen to win a pair of Wimbledon tickets. The competition takes place every 15 minutes until tomorrow (28 June) morning and winners will have their photos put up on the screen and then put on a train to Wimbledon.
Phil Pick, marketing manager for Stella Artois, says the media strategy aims to deliver a “consistency of message” across multiple touchpoints in a way that “genuinely heightens” the premium credentials of the brand. The premium message has had a tendency to fall short when extending to some channels such as retail outlets in the past, he adds.
“What we’re doing feeds into the Connoisseurs programme we’ve launched where we’re really trying to establish that brand consistency across all channels for consumers. The opportunity that we saw [at Waterloo Station] is to create an ecosystem for the work we’re doing around the Wimbledon sponsorship.
“The brand health metrics for Stella Artois are at record highs. The brand image perception measures are moving in the right direction increasingly year-on-year. And importantly, that’s translating into sales. Volumes in the on-and-off trade are up for the year to date versus last year and that’s delivering shared growth for us.”
Outdoor has played a key role in the Stella Artois marketing mix for many years and over the last 18 months the brand has moved to integrate digital further into the channel. Last year, it launched weather-activated outdoor ads and says insights from the Waterloo Station initiative will inform future plans for the channel.
The Posterscope and PS Live-created initiative is part of the brand’s wider “World’s Greatest Events” campaign to highlight its ties to premium sports. Alongside Wimbledon, Stella Artois also sponsors the Open golf championship and the Cannes Film Festival. Vizeum and JCDecaux also worked on the outdoor push.
