Company: JCDecaux Hungary, Budapest, Hungary
Nomination Submitted by: Next9 Communications
Company Description: JCDecaux is a market leader out-of-Home advertising company in Hungary, providing the highest standards in advertising tools, with a strong focus on creative, innovative, unique client solutions. With its sector-leading expertise, JCDecaux helps brand build meaningful interactions and scalable brand communication with their consumers.
Nomination Category: Communications & Marketing Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Communications or PR Campaign of the Year - Communications Research
 Nomination Title: Urban pigeons prove OOH advertising is a must
- Which will you submit for your nomination in this category, a video of up to five (5) minutes, explaining the nominated campaign or program - its genesis,development, planning, commission, and performance to date - OR written answers to the questions? (Choose one):
Written answers to the questions
- If you are submitting a video of up to five (5) minutes in length, provide the URL of the video here, OR attach it to your entry via the "Add Attachments, Videos, or Links to This Entry" link above, through which you may also upload a copy of your video. If you are submitting written answers to the questions, provide them in the appropriate spaces below:
- Specify the date on which this campaign or program was launched:
June – 2021 – ongoing (May 2022)
- Describe the development of the campaign or program: the planning process, the goal setting, the creative and media development, the scheduling, etc. (up to 250 words):
Total 249 words used.
Our CEO stated we should lead the discussion regarding out-of-home advertising. We needed to educate our customers and provide the strongest demonstrative and documentary evidence that have never been seen or available before. She said we needed to put the topic on the agenda in a fashion that engaged even the most sceptical marketers.
She asked us to create a “bucket list” to prove the relevance: online database has been never built via outdoor ads only. There was no Hungarian study about engagement ratio of different advertising tools, no Hungarian data comparison as to what kind of activities could be realized via advertising. No information about how most innovative (AR, QR) outdoor activities attracted consumers and what was considered attractive in general.
Data-driven, research-based storytelling became our golden tool to demonstrate the values of outdoor.
Creative idea: We decided to build a research panel from scratch via outdoor only as the first proof point. We resolved to create many polls and studies to demonstrate, leverage the most welcomed target audiences’ opinions, then continuously create data-driven stories about our research findings. Furthermore, we want to use this tool to build loyalty among our partners.
First step: we created the “look for the pigeon” project (pigeon=sign of delivering messages and city landscape). So, we asked our target audience in Budapest to look for a pigeon citylight poster with a website address “lookforthepigeon.hu” and take action. Basically, we created an outdoor challenge and led target audience to sign up for database.
- Reference any attachments of supporting materials throughout this nomination and how they provide evidence of the claims you have made in this nomination (up to 250 words):
Total 174 words used.
- Citylight posters’ creatives and website address www.keresdagalambot.hu to prove the building of database
- We far exceeded our expectations and KPIs: we generated more than 40 media appearances and recruited 989 users (almost doubled KPIs!)
- Our LinkedIn organic reach sky-rocketed with the 3,000 appearances of the feed (keep in mind that we are working in a small market where these numbers are outstanding, and our LinkedIn page was launched in 2021 without paid PPC support and with only 100 followers).
- Facebook: also launched in 2021, with around 1,000 users and amazing reach.
- E-mail campaigns: our letters’ 28 % opening rate was far above the market average, viewers spending 2-3 minutes reading)
- We started to receive conference invitations, and Hungary’s leading marketing and media magazines invited us to run a joint survey. Our partners and media are queuing to work with us. (Digital Hungary – leading conference about media)
- Our study about usage and efficiency of different communication tools published in 2022 March
- Video to get a deeper understanding about the campaign.
- Describe the genesis of the nominated campaign or program: the reasons it was initiated, the challenges it was created to address, the problems it was developed to solve, etc. (up to 250 words):
Total 250 words used.
JCDecaux is a market leader OOH media company in Hungary, providing the highest standards in advertising tools, with a strong focus on creative, innovative, unique client solutions. Before COVID lockdown, outdoor advertising was embracing digital innovation and growth. But when the virus hit, companies scaled back their outdoor budgets, customers wanted to spend only on PPC. Their reasoning is that everyone is online, outdoor is not relevant.
Our CEO, Tímea - a Forbes Women Toplist and leading advertising and media personality ranked leader in Hungary – is the only honest and reliable voice regarding outdoor sector who managed the company through recession, [REDACTED FOR PUBLICATION] asked the pivotal questions after realizing a very significant fall in turnover in May: how we can overcome the negative perception developed during COVID and prove out-of-home is a relevant and efficient communication channel. She encouraged the team to take actions, think out of the box and find a never-before-seen unique solution, surprise the market and even utilize the following facts:
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Consumers are experiencing digital fatigue which opens up a new opportunity for out-of-home advertising. Consumers would like to be on the go.
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Previous studies showed that younger, urban citizens are much more open to outdoor advertising, their digital media consumption is conscious (usage of adblocker).
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Creativity: new technologies, solutions find their way into outdoor too (AR, VR, QR codes.)
Her motto to keep going and find new ways, became a mantra, an achievable goal to keep the leading market position despite the significant fall of its turnover.
- Outline the activities and concrete results of this campaign or program since the beginning of July 2020. Even if your initiative started before July 2020, limit your response to activities and results since the beginning of July 2020 only (up to 250 words):
Total 248 words used.
A 2-folded campaign was developed: first run a campaign to build a database, followed by a storytelling roadmap, as part of our loyalty program, use the database to run research for at least 2 partners. [REDACTED FOR PUBLICATION]
The first campaign was kicked-off period with only pigeon outdoor CLPs for a month. Never-expected-results: a representative database was successfully built (recruited 989 users doubled vs. planned, representative for education, age, gender, location – twice as efficient as PPC).
After that, the storytelling agenda supported by pigeon database surveys’ results was built up.
2 surveys rolled out about: (1) creativity (what creativity means, outdoor is a creative tool or not) (2) how communication tools’ perception changed due to the pandemic. The spokesperson of the stories became the CEO, Tímea.
Study results: outdoor evaluated as relevant as SM and TV. Every second person visited websites based on outdoor ads. And the most desired target audience avoid digital advertising and use adblockers.
We utilized own media outlets (SM, website, e-mail database – 3,500 contacts) and run a heavy data-driven communication campaign to raise awareness and support the download of the study. Furthermore, we created special sales toolkits. Heavy PR communication also supported the campaign (press releases with the study – 40 pcs).
- Our LinkedIn and FB organic reach sky-rocketed (300% increase)
- E-mail campaigns: 28 % opening rate was far above the market average
- The number of quotations [REDACTED FOR PUBLICATION] exceeded the sales target from October 2021 (when communication started) vs SPLY.
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