Chris Kyme’s Postcard from Hong Kong: What’s wrong with outdoor advertising? (Lots apparently)

Chris Kyme (pictured above right) continues his ‘Postcard from Hong Kong’ series. I love outdoor ads. Posters, billboards, escalator panels, whatever. It’s one of the oldest forms of media (ancient Romans, Egyptians, Chinese etc), and here we are in the modern, progressive digital age where traditional advertising is supposed to be dead yet we’re surrounded by ads wherever we go. Wherever you live in the world.

So why is it that so much of it is utter, predictable crap? Wherever you live in the world. You could be forgiven for thinking that the only time we (as industry folks) see a good poster is in award shows where wonderful ‘proster’ (to quote John Merriman) entries are put on show for all to see and marvel at how they got away with such a small logo or packshot.

But trawl through the archives of old awards annuals and you’ll see classic examples of brilliant outdoor ads. Real stuff, done through proper briefs for real problems. We all grew up on them and we’ve all admired and looked up to them.

I think about this every day as I potter about in Hong Kong, observing the usual wallpaper of bright, dazzling, super exciting, happy-consumer or celebrity-ridden rubbish that makes up most of the output in our industry. I don’t blame the creatives all of the time (though many need to be held accountable these days frankly), I know how hard it is to sell good simple ideas into clients whose selection criteria is based on what they like personally, not what’s going to stand out and get attention from the oh so bored public.

So why is it so hard to improve the standards? I dwell on this a lot (don’t you when you are out and about in your own city?) and I seriously think that there’s a need for training in the industry. I actually did commit to this a number of years ago when I prepared and conducted a workshop about ‘The Principles of Outdoor’ for marketing clients, which was not necessarily a patronising lecture about great work not done by me, but more a ‘stop wasting money with ads that don’t work’ sort of back to basics rallying call, which involved them putting some of the principles into action through the workshop and seemed to have been enjoyed on the whole (I was invited to do it again over two days in Bangkok also so I like to think it went down okay). Not that it seemed to have much effect afterwards.

As someone still active in the local industry (haven’t retired yet and frankly have no interest in golf or gardening), we’ve had one or two campaigns that I think were decent enough examples of using the medium properly, so I’m not all just talk and no trousers (easy to criticise right?). However, just recently I was engaged in conversation with someone who seemed to be making the same observations as myself and furthermore, was going to good lengths to take the conversation beyond just a few comments here and there.

Kara Chan (pictured left) is professor of PR & Advertising at Baptist University in Hong Kong, and she recently involved her students in conducting surveys to get to the bottom of whether or not outdoor ads in Hong Kong were effective or not. This goes beyond just personal preferences as an industry insider. This is verbatim stuff from the mouths of the general public. The people the ads are meant to be targeting.

Having seen Kara putting up some food for thought in social media, we got together to enjoy some food for breakfast and have a natter about her project.

The Hong Kong Baptist University study revealed which ads were more effective than others, and clearly it was felt that most of the advertising surveyed was weak on creativity. Poster awareness ranged from the lowest 11% for a housing project to 81% for “Vaccination of the elderly”. Very few ads stand out and got noticed. The advertisers might think they are producing bold and exciting content, but the reality is, when it all looks the same, it just blends in with the visual jungle.

What was also questioned in the study was the effectiveness of the advertising to lead to purchase decisions, and although for some of the ads revealed reasonable prompted awareness results, intention to purchase was for the most part, low. As is responding to interactive elements such as QR codes. The fact is, 80% of respondents never scanned the QR codes they see on MTR ads.

In terms of effectiveness, there is also the question of influencing public behaviour. And when it comes to this, most government public service ads and ads of non-profit organisations fail miserably. There seems to be a general lack of understanding about the need for, and role of, a strategy. If you want people to do something, stop doing something, or support something, you can’t just run ads telling them to do or not do. You need to think of an argument. Something which makes them think about their actions. And deliver that message in simple and clear ways, in the appropriate media environment to reach the relevant audience.

There are certain key factors that can make some advertising campaigns stand out in the outdoor environment more than others. One is simplicity, the cleaner the design, the less words, the more chance that people on the move might subconsciously take in the message. Ads running on, say, escalator panels, containing multiple messages, have little or no chance of delivering anything. But creativity also plays a major role. The more interesting your message, the more captivating the image or powerful the message, the better chance it has of getting noticed. Sadly most of what we see day to day fails in this area, and very little advertising is different or original in its approach.

There is also a general lack of understanding among advertisers as to the role of outdoor in their media mix. Outdoor ads can be great for prompting brand awareness. A simple big bold product or logo and a few words, even in the absence of any creativity. But outdoor is not a great place to deliver detailed information. So all those posters you see with lots of words and 20 small logos and other details, are quite pointless. Especially in a moving environment (either you are moving or the ad is moving).

This is not a problem unique to Hong Kong, travel anywhere and good outdoor ads are few and far between. It was not always the case in Hong Kong either. Hong Kong did enjoy a ‘golden era’ of better advertising creativity. But why should the advertisers, or for that matter the media vendors, care?

Well the simple answer to this is that a lot of outdoor advertising in Hong Kong is a waste of money. You can put it out there, but what’s the point if it’s delivering poor results? From a media vendor’s perspective, this means that you can be held accountable. If a brand is paying good money to run ads on your sites, and not seeing the desired results, they can conclude that your particular form of outdoor doesn’t work. Without taking into account the content of the ads that are running.

We all know that creative people in the agencies are capable of better. But do clients want better, or do they just want to produce the same old stuff everyone else is doing because they feel safer spending the money on that?

I personally do feel that there is a missing link here somewhere and the solution might be in training. In showing people what is possible. What the rewards can be when you create impactful, memorable work that people enjoy to look at.

Speaking as an industry insider, one of the observations I’ve noticed is, when you come across great work in the social media space, these days it automatically goes viral. Not just within your market, but around the world. Look at the Nike ‘Believe in something billboard with Colin Kaepernick. A simple, classic old style execution, with a powerful copy line featuring an American football player. Yet we all saw it everywhere. It was compelling and challenging and stirred up debate. It became viral because it was powerful.

Just recently I’ve seen the campaign designed to inspire the USA World Cup football (okay, soccer) team in Qatar, with long copy (yes long copy billboards) messages from TV series character Ted Lasso. You think those are really meant just for the home audience? I’ve seen them all over social media and have received them in WhatsApp from various sources. That’s a viral campaign. There are others recently, British Airways for example, or Brewdog (a tad controversial I might add). They’re good so they get shared and benefit from the amplification effect. Making noise beyond the medium that they were officially designed for.

We know that greats ads have always been the exception, not the norm. History is testament to that (although I saw some pretty good wall ads from ancient Rome when teaching ‘The History of Advertising earlier this year). But wouldn’t it be great if we were all getting briefs that called out for a great simple poster that knocked people out instead of the usual fake happy consumers or fake sincere celebrities blandvertising?

Kara and I will continue this conversation, and see if there’s not a way of trying to make a difference. Let’s see.

If you would like to view the Hong Kong Baptist University studies in full, click here.