Consumers live in a world that’s inundated by ads. From bus stops to social media, they are bombarded by companies enticing them to purchase their products or services. This environment has trained consumers to become experts at ignoring ads. They are even willing to pay an additional fee just to be spared from these advertisements.
With this growing indifference and hostility against advertisements, how do you ensure that your next campaign is as effective as possible?
The answer is creativity. Unique and effective ads invoke the opposite reaction in consumers and drive them to document the ad and share it on social media, expanding the ad’s reach. An example of this is The Economist’s Lightbulb ad, an interactive billboard involving a giant lightbulb that lights up when someone walks under it. It was so popular that it received several features in various top blogs.
If you need inspiration for your next ad campaign, here are a few ideas.
- Projection mapping
Projection mapping involves projecting images or videos onto a 3D surface. The surface can be anything from the façade of a building to a swimming pool. Projection mapping clicks so well with consumers because it’s such a novel technology, and when pulled off effectively, can create mesmerizing effects. An example of this is the Axioma exhibition at the LLUM BCN festival in Barcelona. Projected onto the façade of the Plaça del Rei, the projections created the illusion that the building was shifting before your eyes.
The best part about projection mapping is that you can scale it however you like. If you’re setting it up indoors, all you need is a projector ceiling mount.
- Interactive ads
Besides serving as a marketing tool for your product, interactive ads create a unique consumer experience. There are endless ways you can do this, either with motion sensing, touchscreens, voice detection, remote control and more. An effective example of this is LG advertising the lifelike quality of their IPS monitors by installing them on an elevator floor. A few seconds after someone enters the elevator; the monitor displays would make it seem like the floor panels were dropping. It served the two-fold purpose of demonstrating the quality of their monitors and giving people a laugh. The ad has accumulated over 49 million views since it was released.
- Dynamic ads
Having ads that change appearance over time is a creative way of rewarding consumers who pay attention. The BBC’s ad for the show Dracula demonstrates this perfectly with an ad that transforms at night. The billboard depicts a white background with multiple bloody stakes sticking out of it during the day, but at night, the stakes’ shadows reveal a silhouette of the titular vampire. The ad quickly went viral and has garnered multiple features in various blogs.
It’s a tough world out there for advertisers, but the key to not losing touch with consumers is creativity. Keep an eye on media innovations and any consumer trends, and see how you can incorporate those into your next ad campaign.
