JCDecaux Personal Billboards

Background

JCDecaux sales teams were constantly trying to give presentations to marketers to give them the facts about outdoor advertising. Even in 2015 it was proving to be a most effective medium. The problem was, the leading marketing directors in Belgium were all too busy to give up the time for a presentation.

The task was to get them to pay attention to this valuable medium.

Idea

The idea was to help marketing directors experience for themselves how effective outdoor could be. Without asking their permission, a photo of each marketing director was put on a single billboard along with their name and JCDecaux's email address.

The response was gratifying. The marketers were all confused, shocked and a little annoyed that people kept contacting them to know what was happening.

They were then sent an email apologising for any inconvenience: "We just wanted you to experience the effectiveness of outdoor advertising. As you got so many reactions from just one single billboard ... imagine what our entire network could do for your brand!"

They were invited to sign up for the presentation.

Results

Every single marketing director booked a presentation, so JCDecaux got a 100% response rate.

Our Thoughts

Personalisation. Works every time. Open a copy of Campaign or Ad Age and often you’ll see press ads selling the virtues of TV and radio. What’s nice about this is JCDecaux used their own medium. I’d love to know the numbers. My guess is that this simple and inexpensive idea led to a lot of additional advertising from Renault et al.