The Outdoor Media Association (OMA) has just launched its ‘Summer is Coming’ campaign To celebrate Australia’s sweaty and steamy summer ahead. five of Australia’s leading marketers tell us why Outdoor is so appealing in the summer months for any brand.

According to oOh!pen Season Consumer Survey*, in summer 83 per cent of Australians are spending more time outdoors. Sun-baked Aussies change their media consumption in the summer time, with 33 per cent of people watching less TV and 21 per cent spending less time online^.

OMA’s CEO Charmaine Moldrich told B&T: “Summer is one of Outdoor’s peak seasons as people are in a relaxed, open state of mind, and they’re noticing more Outdoor advertising too – it’s a perfect environment for any brand.”

How have marketers at McDonald’s, ANZ, Qantas, Spotify and Lexus capitalised on the power of Outdoor?

McDonald’s

Chief marketing officer for McDonald’s Australia & NZ Mark Lollback believes outdoor is very important for McDonald’s, particularly over summer.

“Proximity for us is very important, and Outdoor gives us that flexibility right down to the restaurant level.

“Very strategic use of Outdoor is powerful for us. And quite often we have very simple messages around launches. Take frozen Coke for example, or if we’re doing Waffle Cones over summer. It’s an impulsive purchase and not a complicated message.”

“Over my career I’ve been a big fan of Outdoor. I find it one of the most strategic mediums you can use, both from a media and creativity point of view.”

ANZ

ANZ Australia’s head of marketing, Carolyn Bendall believes that Outdoor is the one consistent way to achieve reach in a fragmented media world.

“The other thing that Outdoor brings for us is visibility. In the world of digital and social channels and much more targeted communications, Outdoor delivers a chance to get brand visibility that virtually no other channel can do for us.”

“Part of our strategy is how can we use outdoor to increase the feel of ANZ and create a larger presence for our brand.”

Qantas

Whether it is billboard, street furniture or around the Qantas terminal, Outdoor plays an integral part of the marketing strategy at Qantas according to chief marketing officer Stephanie Tully.

“Getting the right, inspiring, eye-catching content is quite specific and very different to what you can do in digital,” said Tully.

“With the rise of data-driven marketing, some might question Outdoor, but for us it’s actually been even more powerful because we use our data and insights from our frequent flyers to tell us where to use Outdoor.”

Spotify

For pure play digital brands like Spotify, using Outdoor to supercharge a TV or digital campaign is a bit of a no brainer. On its recent “Text to Listen” campaign, Spotify designed a mobile microsite with a specific call to action.

“Each piece of creative had a slightly different mobile number so we could track how many people were interacting with the ad, which ad in particular and at which time. What we found though is that just as many people actually Googled the ad execution as they did use the mobile call to action, which was a really nice upside for us,” says Spotify marketing manager Serena Leith.

Lexus

Corporate manager Adrian Weimers at Lexus Australia believes Outdoor presents the opportunity to make the car brand look bigger than it actually is.

“We use Outdoor across the year and particularly in summer when the eyeballs aren’t there [for TV],” said Weimers. “[It’s] a great way for us to be talking to our consumers when they’re out and about.

“Without a doubt the battleground for automotive is in Television, with 65 brands all shouting at each other. So we use Outdoor strategically to actually extend our presence in Television and extend our reach.”

*oOh!pen Season Consumer Survey ^Sep 2014 Omnibus n=1,500