Off-screen opportunities: The new advertising dimensions

For as long as commercial television has existed, it has been the primary portal for advertising, ever since the first TV commercial appeared in British televisions on 22 September 1955. The 60-second spot (main image) from Y&R was for Gibbs SR toothpaste, and broadcast to around two million people in the London region.

By the 1960s most households had a telly, and the ‘golden age’ of TV advertising begins right there, bookended by Carol Reed’s noir-ish You’re Never Alone with a Strand from 1960, and Jonathan Glazer’s Surfer for Guinness in 1999.

While TV spots aren’t going away anytime soon, it’s advertising outside the frame of your big-screen TV that is throwing new shapes.

In between, if you look hard enough you’ll find the Milk Tray Man spilling Cinzano over the Gold Blend couple in Nick Kamen's laundromat as Cadbury’s gorilla taps out a beat on the head of a Smash robot in the back seat of Papa and Nicole’s Renault Clio while pulling on a purple Silk Cut.

ABOVE: During this year’s Emmy Awards DirecTV promoted its Universal Search function by projecting video demos across Hollywood buildings, along with art from the night’s Emmy winners.

This year, a 70th anniversary list of the top 70 TV ads aired since 1955 was issued by ITV, D&AD and the System1. Just six of them post-date 2015. TV advertising is not the nation’s entertainer it used to be. And these days, Milk Tray Man would be in court for stalking.

Streaming and social changed the face of television, with the likes of Netflix, then all the others, overtaking linear TV in an ad-free blur of binge viewing, stoking the supersize-me ethos of 21st century consumption. But post-Covid, times got tough even for Netflix, and viewers now have the freedom to pay not to have an ad break.

The worlds of experiential, social, multi-platform and out-of-home are finding refreshing new ways of building engagement.

While TV spots aren’t going away anytime soon, it’s advertising outside the frame of your big-screen TV that is throwing new shapes, 70 years after that toothpaste spot. The worlds of experiential, social, multi-platform and out-of-home are finding refreshing new ways of building engagement, loyal communities and commercial impact that today’s TV advertising cannot reach – not when viewers are in reach of a remote, a fast-forward button and an ad-free plan.

ABOVE: US law firm Morgan & Morgan used OOH that leaned into boldness, displaying a confidence that matches that of the firm itself.

While traditional out-of-home is in decline, with reduced spend on posters and static placements, digital OOH is enjoying an uplift, on escalators, at bus stops, in city centres. For this year’s Emmys, DirecTV went further, taking the form of a hijack projected across high-rises across Hollywood, Santa Monica and Downtown, pairing its search bar with key art from the night’s Emmy winners.

You can ignore a tweet, but you can’t ignore a billboard sitting above your exit ramp.

Working with TBWA\Chiat\Day LA, and switching from street view to screen, they mounted a home-page takeover across review website Rotten Tomatoes. “With today’s fragmented TV landscape, figuring out where a show lives can be overwhelming,” says Kelly Jo Sands, SVP, Digital & Marketing at DirecTV. “This campaign highlights just how effortlessly DirecTV helps viewers discover and enjoy this year’s top Emmy-nominated shows – all in one place – so you can spend more time feeling every moment and less time looking for what to watch.”

[OOH is] the subliminal peppering of people’s daily lives… the scenery in the movie of their commute.

For a more traditional, eyeball-catching OOH campaign with a reach that’s as long as the law’s, legal firm Morgan & Morgan played a big, bold, eye-catching blinder. Its in-house CCO Carlos Wigle reveals the secret ingredient: “The trick isn’t just being big, it’s being unignorable. Billboards work when they refuse to blend into the background noise of a commute. With Morgan & Morgan, we leaned into sheer boldness – big fonts, blunt language, a confidence that matches the scale of the firm.

ABOVE: MORGAN & MORGAN’s billboards aim to get the point across to fast-moving travellers in seconds.

“Today’s most successful OOH tactics are about simplicity with stopping power:” he goes on, “Can someone get the point in three seconds at 70 miles per hour? If yes, you’ve won. If not, you’ve just paid to be part of the scenery. Its power is in its bluntness and its consistency. Unlike digital, there’s no skip button. You can ignore a tweet, but you can’t ignore a billboard sitting above your exit ramp.”

Commuters are stuck, delayed, scrolling endlessly. If you can make them smirk, nod in agreement or feel a flash of surprise on their way to work, you’ve won.

As Wigle concedes, OOH has had to shrug off perceptions of being a tired format – we may be out and about, but we’re locked in to our phone screens. On billboards, on the sides of buses, even on stairways, Morgan & Morgan’s OOH made you look up. All it needs is a second. “It’s the subliminal peppering of people’s daily lives,” says Wigle, “the scenery in the movie of their commute.”

To fully unleash its power, you need to grasp the context, which is the wingspan of the time span afforded each passing set of eyeballs. “On freeways, it’s one sharp headline and a brand identity you recognise before you’ve finished reading. Simplicity is the strategy—clarity that cuts through the blur of traffic.”

ABOVE: T Mobile’s joyous musical eruption in London’s Liverpool Street station in 2009 was directed by Michael Gracey (The Greatest Showman, Better Man) and kicked off the flashmob craze.

Shift the context to a city’s public transport hubs – subways, platforms, carriages, escalators, station signage – all broadcasting to a captive audience of commuters, and the rules change. “That’s where the creative magic lives,” says Wigle. “Commuters are stuck, delayed, scrolling endlessly. If you can make them smirk, nod in agreement or feel a flash of surprise on their way to work, you’ve won. A subway ad that gives people a moment of delight becomes part of their commute ritual. And advertising that entertains doesn’t just get noticed—it gets remembered.”

A lot of what underpinned [flashmobs] and made them good was the impression of spontaneity, and the idea you are encouraging bystanders to film the moment and share.

Experiential work is another sector of off-screen creativity that gets remembered by those who stand witness. The flashmob craze – the term entered the Oxford English Dictionary in 2004 – was a guerrilla tactic made famous by T-Mobile’s danceathon at London’s Liverpool Street Station in 2009. It’s less prominent now, but its lessons are worth factoring in to experiential, says James Drummond, formerly of AMV and Uncommon, now chief client and commercial officer at experiential agency Brand Brewery.

ABOVE: T Mobile has continued the Life Is For Sharing experiential campaigns such as a spectacular virtual event that saw a hologrammatic Mariah Carey perform simultaneously in five European cities in 2011.

“I remember when flashmobs first happened,” he says. “I was at AMV and everyone was like, did you see that THING?! A lot of what underpinned them and made them good was the impression of spontaneity, and the idea you are encouraging bystanders to film the moment and share. Those were two building blocks for what you can pre-programme into an event to make it feel bigger, shareable and more social. And it’s a really smart way of doing it.”

The closer you can get to a tangible physical moment with a brand is reassuring and reminds you why you have an affection for it in the first place.

At Uncommon, he says, there was a mantra: “An experience is the truth of a brand.” It was that experiential space that drew him to Brand Brewery. “With events and activations you get closer to the truth of a brand,” he says. “You are physically and emotionally closer to them, to the experience and to the product. In a world of general scepticism about most things, and a fear of being ripped off or sold to or being used, the closer you can get to a tangible physical moment with a brand is reassuring and reminds you why you have an affection for it in the first place.”

Brand Brewery specialises in internal activations, such as staff events for delivery company DHL – consistently rated one of the world’s top employers. For DHL, that rating means as much in terms of branding as any customer-facing campaign

ABOVE: Delivery service DHL’s partnership with Manchester United football club included a Play on Pitch activation at Carrington and Old Trafford stadiums for staff, customers and fans.

For them, a happy and motivated workforce means satisfied customers, and customer satisfaction means good business. “They believe if you make [staff] feel super special and intrinsic to the organisation, they’ll deliver a great product to customers, and if customers have a great experience, they’ll use you again,” says Drummond. “So DHL doesn’t really put as much of an emphasis on advertising. They invest in their people. And we do a lot of events for them that help those people feel seen, stimulated and rewarded.”

Behind-the-scenes footage, stories on socials, sliced and diced for TikTok – that’s where your budget needs to work as hard as it can. Even though it’s a physical event it can still live and breathe and have a blast radius on other platforms.

It’s part of Drummond’s brief to ensure that every event is perfectly planned, executed and recorded for the socials, so that its reach extends beyond the hundreds who were there. That includes the global reach of partner activations such as the ones between DHL and Manchester United. “How do you take that experience and that content and amplify it? With the behind-the-scenes footage, stories on socials, sliced and diced for TikTok – that’s where your budget needs to work as hard as it can. Even though it’s a physical event it can still live and breathe and have a blast radius on other platforms.”

ABOVE: DHL’s biannual Eurocup is a 2800 person football and cheerleading staff bonding jamboree. This year the French team had the support of Manchester United Legend, Louis Saha, who turned up to coach and cheer them on.

At Burn Studio, with offices in New York and London, they embrace social with the same values that traditionally apply to TV commercials. For managing director Brad Johns, “the platforms driving cultural conversations and purchase decisions are social. That’s where attention now lives. Viewers routinely shift to their phones during commercial breaks, and the bulk of daily content, from news to tutorials to comedy, is consumed on mobile.”

We’ve moved past disposable, clickbait influencer content into a space where longer-form, more crafted storytelling is not only accepted, but sought after.

He goes further. “TV has been in structural decline for years; the real lag is in how much traditional advertising still clings to it as the default.”

He highlights the likes of Nike’s Stand Clear cinematic social for the US Open, and the Insta-cinematic vibes of Coming of Age’s work for Ramp. “We’ve moved past disposable, clickbait influencer content into a space where longer-form, more crafted storytelling is not only accepted, but sought after,” says Johns. “Audiences want work that feels intentional, premium, and culturally relevant, and that’s a great shift for filmmakers. I expect this trend to accelerate – the best campaigns outside TV will increasingly look like cinema designed for the small screen.”

ABOVE: The financial services platform Ramp hired The Office actor Brian Baumgartner to perform his first ‘day at work’ as the company’s ‘new CFO’ in NY’s Flatiron Plaza in an ingenious campaign produced by Burn Studio.

Panning across the multi-platform screenscape, Johns points to the need to re-orientate perceptions of the social space, and to strategise it. “Multi-platform campaigns often need a bigger volume of assets and interwoven storylines,” he says. “You have to design the shoot so it can deliver that without diluting the quality. The biggest constraint has been the slow shift in mindset,” he adds.

“Traditional advertising has taken far too long to recognise social platforms as real filmmaking spaces. But in the past couple of years we’ve seen a meaningful shift in how clients think. The opportunities are huge. Audiences want high-quality storytelling in their feeds again. At the same time, AI is about to redefine what it means to make work that feels personal, emotional, and visually ambitious.”

While the focus on advertising outside the frame of television is often on real-world and multi-platform visuals, the attention paid to sound design and redefining how we hear, act, react and experience sound beyond the screen is also reorienting advertising’s new open spaces.

ABOVE: Sonic Union created a soundscape to enhance the immersivity of the Scent Discovery exhibit at Atlanta’s World of Coca-Cola, which was inspired by Coca-Cola founder Asa Candler, who identified the drink’s original ingredients by scent alone.

At Sonic Union, sound designer Owen Shearer ponders strategies of immersion into the medium of sound. “It’s an essential part of making an experiential project immersive,” he says. “It can be used to literally draw people in, or act as a guide, or punctuate interactivity in an active environment, one in which you’re a participant and therefore a character.”

Experiential is a kind of living organism where things can change whether intended or not.

Shearer goes on: “Cadence, sonic layering, how the sound may bounce off surfaces, and how sound design will read in a busy environment are all important considerations. In broadcast, once you’ve locked and delivered it’s done, but experiential is a kind of living organism where things can change whether intended or not.”

As well as art installations and interactive projects, Sound Union’s branded work includes the World of Coca-Cola Museum Scent Discovery. Its purpose? “To reveal the powerful connection between smell, taste, and memory,” says Johns. “We were tasked to help create an immersive experience via sound in a variety of ways, including audio for buttons that identify aromas and, when pushed, unlock visual landscapes, showcasing how scents can transport you.” And rather than using the short 10-second sound loops envisioned by the client, Sound Union went large. “By extending the loop and increasing variation, we ensured the audio remained ambient rather than distracting, encouraging audiences to stay immersed longer.”

For a fully immersive technology that’s as old as the hills, you can’t beat a good book, and the written word is another arena for creative brand presence to draw eyeballs and push a few boundaries.