OOH has been a substantial part of Marks and Spencer’s media plans for decades providing scale and impact. In Summer 2021, with UK consumers returning to high streets, the challenge was to return to OOH advertising in a way that delivered the same scale and impact but in a much more measurable, efficient, and creative way.
“The big question we were asking ourselves was: How can we show the customer what they are interested in and convert that into a sale as quickly as possible.” Said Luisa Lee, Luisa Lee, Head of Marketing, Trade Planning and Media, Marks and Spencer.
The challenge
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Marks and Spencer withdrew from many broadcast channels, particularly OOH. When lockdown restrictions eased, they needed a way to re-start OOH advertising in an agile way to deliver, targeted, relevant, and measurable campaigns at scale. “From a media planning perspective, the challenge was finding a way to use broadcast channels at the right time, in the right place rather than 24/7 while also ensuring Marks and Spencer reached consumers at every stage of the consumer journey.” Said Ben Chadd, Managing Partner, Mindshare UK.
The solution
Together with Mindshare and JCDecaux, Marks and Spencer developed a programmatic DOOH (pDOOH) strategy that leveraged their product feeds so that creative and delivery was automatically adjusted based on local stock levels and sales data. “The campaign was part of a multichannel approach combining pDOOH with geodata-based mobile campaigns and TV and pDOOH to ensure that we were reaching people in a consistent way both in and out of their homes and also via public and private screens.” Said Ben Chadd, Managing Partner, Mindshare UK.
Results
The campaign over-delivered against all planned benchmarks. Delivering 15.4m impacts nationally. Sightline activity was 64% more effective at reaching the M&S target audience compared to a natural delivery. “What started as a four-week campaign has evolved into a permanent part of our media plan. Going forward , we’re looking at ho w we can use pDOOH to enable us to be representative of Britain in our creative and reflect that across the country. As a b rand we hav e a responsibility to show up in a way that resonates with everybody everywhere. pDOOH is going to enable us to do that.” Said Luisa Lee, Luisa Lee, Head of Marketing, Trade Planning and Media, Marks and Spencer.