Out-of-Home advertising has the power to help brands build trust, gain fame and grow. It has been doing this for brands of all sizes for years – making sure they are seen in the real world.
When challenger brands launch and grow, there are multiple obstacles they need to overcome in their bid to take on established players or carve out a new category. Building brand recognition – among consumers or other businesses – needs to be done at speed and scale. And this is where real-world media can make such a difference for the entrepreneurs behind these businesses.
It’s why, 10 years ago, we started the Nurture programme. This unique, UK-founded initiative sees JCDecaux match selected start-ups’ OOH advertising spend, pound-for-pound, to help them increase their impact in the real world.
Entrepreneurs are close to our heart – JCDecaux is an entrepreneurial business, founded by one man with the bold idea to provide and maintain bus shelters funded through advertising. From start-up status in Lyon, France it scaled to become the world leader in OOH advertising.
So it’s core to our values and purpose to support the next generation of businesses. And that’s precisely what Nurture has done. A decade on, the programme has helped more than 500 high-growth businesses – among them 16 unicorns including Starling Bank, Strava, Bumble and GoCardless.
Other growth brands that have benefited from the programme as they have developed into household names cut across multiple sectors and include Manilife, shopify and Cubitts.
This week (15th September), we marked Nurture’s 10th anniversary with an official Market Close ceremony at the London Stock Exchange, bringing together founders, CEOs, investors and partners as Jean-François Decaux rang the market closing bell in this celebrated ceremony.
Our support of these ambitious startups goes beyond access to market leading advertising sites. When start-ups become part of the Nurture programme, we also offer audience insight and creative guidelines as well as matching investment. This comes in the form of personalised creative advice, tools for creative testing and helping them connect with agencies experienced in crafting exceptional work for challenger brands.
The pound-for-pound media spend equivalence ensures that these nascent businesses can amplify their brands without sacrificing equity. But, where more capital investment is needed, JCDecaux also helps introduce start-ups to leading venture capital firms and investors.
Many of the successful brands that have been part of the programme over the years have inevitably been digitally native ones; businesses founded by entrepreneurs tapping into the opportunities that online offers. But what’s so interesting, is that the founders of these entirely online brands know that it is by commanding attention in the real world that they have the best chance of building brand fame and seeing their start-ups grow. It is by advertising and being present in the real world – where people shop, travel and live – in stations, at airports and across cities, that brands are noticed by people.
The value of being visible is significant and data supports this: the Nurture brand funnel leads to +70% awareness, +73% consideration and +83% conversion according to our research.
The success of new businesses not only benefits the entrepreneurs behind them, but it also benefits the whole economy. Innovation and growth are fundamental to the success of the UK and its citizens. Founders are solving today’s problems. Many started with little more than a strong idea and the determination to succeed. Many are now category leaders and household names – every brand takes a different journey, but they all share the courage to back an idea and persist.
Over the past 10 years, we’ve delivered more than 2,000 campaigns and generated over 30 billion impressions – that’s the equivalent of every person in the UK seeing a Nurture campaign around 430 times. It has now expanded to operate across 13 markets globally.
We’re proud of how Nurture has helped make brand building more accessible for ambitious young businesses. Helping transform startups to scale-ups, and ultimately household names, is what makes this programme so rewarding.