The outdoor advertising association of Great Britain has confirmed that outdoor advertising and the internet are the only two major growing channels in the advertising industry, predominantly at the expense of advertising revenue in magazines and newspapers. The rise and rise in outdoor spend is mainly to thank to a few clever players, who have re-segmented audiences by life-style venues, offering impressive precision in targeting demos. It has further capitalized on its momentum by introducing one innovation after the other.

The Bar & Pub audience

Central to UK society and lifestyles bars, pubs and clubs play a variety of roles depending on the type of venue, its location and décor. Over recent years there has been a massive change in the marketplace with a definite shift from the traditional pub to branded audience-focused chains targeting a wide range of lifestyle needs focused on the key demographic groups. Larger venues, themed nights, events and concerts have all led to a huge increase in the number of people visiting bars in the UK.

The Managing Director of Luminar, the largest operator of licensed venues in the UK, says, “It was an absolute revolution in drinking habits, we changed hundreds of characterless boozers into thriving social centres.”

Effectiveness of the environment for advertisers

Bars & pubs are the number one choice** as meeting places for friends, couples and colleagues where they discuss the latest trends and current events. For this reason many advertisers have identified pubs, bars and clubs as the perfect outdoor advertising environment to not only educate potential customers about their brands but also generate a real topic of conversation among these trend-setters and opinion formers. There are various powerful channels to reach these audiences in the pub environment, including toilet posters, sampling, promotional activity and beer mats distributed nationwide. Research has proven that an audience in a ‘socialising’ mindset is highly receptive to the toilet posters and other sampling opportunities. MBA Independent Researchers reported that bar advertising generated a massive 78%**** prompted recall, on average, among key target audiences.

For example, in a recent integrated outdoor advertising campaign held by T-Mobile prompted awareness reached 80% among the core young audience, with 67% saying that they would be very likely to consider using T-Mobile in the future***.

Admedia’s Joint Chief Executive, Philip Vecht comments: “Our national network of some of the largest and most popular style bars, pubs and clubs enable advertisers to effectively target a huge lucrative young audience, who have proven to be highly receptive to advertising messages. Advertisers can dominate the environment, creating highly impactful campaigns that generate massive awareness levels among an increasingly difficult to reach audience.”

Increased spend from youth-orientated brands

The effectiveness of bars at attracting a lucrative youth orientated audience has led to a flood of advertising spend in bar media from a huge range of categories, including telecommunications, films, entertainment, motoring, toiletries & cosmetics, drinks and gaming.

O2, Warner Bros, Channel 4, T-Mobile, Ford, Nivea, WKD and Xbox have all recognised the effectiveness of bar media at reaching this notoriously difficult to reach audience.

T-Mobile Case studies

The bar advertising activity was especially created for the launch of their latest tariff ‘U-Fix’ and took full advantage of over a dozen existing and entirely new formats to create a fully integrated T-Mobile event throughout a network of style bars and clubs nationally across 800 venues. The range of media - including washroom posters - put to use by Mediacom and Posterscope gave the brand total engagement with their target audience of 18-24 year olds.

A video about the campaign can be viewed at YouTube

Activity included:

- Washroom posters (inc. talking posters)

- Door and mirror stickers

- T-shirts worn by bar staff

- Bar top branding

- Drinks coasters

- Branded lollipops

- Interactive DJ’s & 10,000 Prizes

- Branded matchbooks

- Free shots

- 2 million branded scratch-cards

Lynx Case Study

A multi-element promotion for Lynx Click, in conjunction with a huge national TV campaign, based in nightclubs across the UK.

- Washroom posters

- Mirror stickers

- Door stickers

- Drinks coasters

- Branded pint glasses

- Branded matchbooks

- Branded bar runners

- Branded T-shirts

Conclusion

Prompted awareness of the T-Mobile outdoor advertising campaign reached 88% among the core audience, with 67% saying that they would be very likely to consider using T-Mobile in the future. 80% of respondents were unaware of T-Mobile U-Fix before entering the bar environment even though the campaign had been running nationally on TV two weeks previously.

…Media innovation – delivering high creative solutions

Talking posters provide an excellent opportunity to grab the target audience’s attention, create a topic of conversation, and allow usage of audio creative from a TV or Radio campaign to re-enforce the brand message in an innovative and impactful way. Used by T-Mobile, Paramount Pictures, UIP and 20th Century Fox.

Direct response media pads with washroom posters: positioned at the bottom of the restroom poster, these business card sized tear off slips present a unique and massively effective device for any advertiser requiring direct response mechanism or to simply educate and remind the consumer about the product.

Beer mats and coasters, produced in any shape or size, can increase the visibility of a brand in the bar environment - generating a real interaction with audiences through a call to action and relevant games. Beer mats have been used as an advertising vehicle by Nokia, Nestle, 02, T-Mobile, Ladbrokes and UIP.

Other advertising opportunities in bars include: branded pint glasses, shot glasses, wine glasses, matchbooks, bar runners, mirror stickers, urinal stickers, door stickers, branded ashtrays, DJ interaction, scratch cards, t-shirts, branded lollipops and competitions

Source: *High Street Pubs and Bars Report; ***MBA Independent Researchers, ****Only Admedia venues were researched. Author: Lorenz Lammens

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