MarketPlace

Outdoor ads tap consumer curiosity to boost sales

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Outdoor adverts in Nairobi. PHOTO | DIANA NGILA

Last month, chewing gum company Wrigley East Africa unveiled a billboard advertisement reading Don’t Let Dinner Lead the Conversation along the Thika Superhighway, promoting its product PK.

Outdoor advertising has experienced substantial growth in the country and many billboards now tower over Kenyan streets.

What sets the Wrigley billboard apart from the rest is the mystery surrounding it.

At first glance, the animated advertisement that features a small man seating on a tree-trunk like figure, immediately captures the attention of the consumer, but they would have to look at it intently or several times in order to see the PK brand inscribed on it.

With this approach, Wrigley is setting the stage for curiosity, as consumers try and establish the company behind the image and the overall meaning of the advertisement, starting a conversation around it that makes the advert stand out from the rest.

“Today there is a lot of advertisement clutter on all media, including outdoor. Outdoor advertising is limited and it is not easy to navigate. Standing out, therefore, is a great strategy and thinking outside the box creativity is what inspired the development of the PK adverts,” said Regina Karani, Wrigley Marketing Director, Sub-Saharan Africa.

“We have seen a lot of excitement surrounding the advertisement including from the younger generation, which is completely in sync with it. The older consumers are quite intrigued and curious — both ways; it has attracted a lot of interest to the brand.”

Indeed, such a campaign provides meaning to a brand allowing consumers to learn more about it by engaging with them via different platforms. It generates a conversation around it and compels them to buy.

“Consumers to an extent enjoy having their brains teased. When there is an ‘incomplete’ story, it is bound to capture their attention, create a conversation around it and invites them to find out more about it,” said Stella Kimani, a Kenyan brand marketer.

“When such creativity is utilised in the right way it has the ability to add value to a product because it adds a sense of excitement and consumers will want to try out the product in order to find out more about it.”

An example of a company that successfully used this strategy is Coca-Cola. In 2016, while launching the Share a Coke advertising campaign in Chattanooga, the US, the company unveiled 60 black-and-white billboards with the single word ‘‘Ubiquitous’’ on them all over the area.

Curiosity over what the billboards meant led to a lot of media coverage and social media engagement over the advertisements as consumers sought to find out what it meant.

“The ‘ubiquitous’ billboards have gotten more attention than any advertising campaign that we have done in years.

‘‘It was a wonderful opportunity to demonstrate the power and the reach of outdoor advertising throughout the region,” said Fairway general manager Scott LaFoy, the advertising company behind the billboards, in an interview with a local newspaper.

“It is the place where the world first had Coke in a bottle and we wanted to create buzz in the area as we unveiled the campaigns,” said Darren Hodges, the area’s Coca-Cola Division Director.

However, for such a marketing strategy to work the brand needs to understand its consumer base and research what is relevant to them at that time.

“The problem for most brands is they do not know enough about what is relevant to their customers to engage them through mystery. Brands typically work on the principle of more is better.

‘‘However, in this case, fewer facts and more intrigue will create a compelling mystery that challenges their ingenuity to discover a solution. The greater the excitement, the more social energy it will attract,” reported Donna Sturgess, the former Global Head of Innovation for

GlaxoSmithKline.

-African Laughter