We have heard a lot about disruption. Brands must cause a disruption to stay relevant. Brands that wish to survive must be prepared to be disruptive. Brands that will win in an age of disruption are those that seek to change and morph into the best contemporary version of themselves.

There is little doubt that steadfastly clinging to the “way we have always done things” has lead to the demise of some big brands, I don’t even need to point out the obvious Kodak, HMV, Blockbuster case studies to make this point. Brands that embraced change, found new ways to deliver gratification for consumer desires or even invented the desire that can be gratified have prospered and thrived.   

A quick glance at Linkedin shows how deeply disruption has infiltrated the media narrative. Once you look past those working in the transport industry who I suspect are dealing with more stressful, “wrong kind of snow” forms of disruption there are plenty of Disruption Chiefs, Officers, Directors and Innovators all looking for ways to make their brand stand out.

In his President’s Prize winning IPA Excellence Diploma essay, The Hare and the Tortoise, Charley Ebdy focusses on the way in which 21st century brands require a new set of rules to build their brands. He concludes “we need to learn and build on the lessons of today’s winners and add a second model of brand building to our arsenal, the 21st century Hare to the 20th century’s Tortoise. By toggling between these two options, quick first and slow second, brands can be both built and sustained, successfully and consistently.”

This is where I think Out of Home comes in. Google and Apple, hero brands for our medium, provide examples of previously disruptive brands crossing into the main stream, clinging on to their anarchic roots with their impressive executions. Technically complicated or visually stunning the big kids know how to make their presence felt, but the new boys and girls of the disruptive generation are making great use of OOH to extend their fledgling customer base.

Many of these new and disruptive brands are monopolising on the insatiable desire for us to be able to control everything from shopping to healthcare, central heating to getting home to the previously warmed house from the device in the palm of our hands. Many of the people that are open to new brands and the experiences they offer are likely to be heavily exposed to OOH.

Our recent research study OutPerform shows that people who are exposed to OOH are 17% more likely to take a brand action on a smartphone than those who did not see it. That’s across 35 brands, only 7 of which were actually telling people to go online and do something. If you look at just the top 20 performing campaigns the uplift rises to 38%, imagine the potential for a brand actively looking for smartphone engagement and makes the call to action clear.

Marketing Week’s recently published list of 100 disruptive brands includes, YPlan, Nutmeg, Commuter Club and Deliveroo amongst others that have, to varying degrees, successfully utilised OOH to make their brand famous. They are brands that need to weave themselves into the lives of early adopters, be omnipresent so that when you do need a ticket to a gig, a loan or a posh burger delivered to your door you know just where to go. OOH gives new brands the opportunity to play in the same playground as the ultimate disruptors.

OOH allows new brands to extend their couponing or offer led customer recruitment, imply stature through scale, educate the audience into how to interact with them. New brands that may not have the marketing clout to invest large budgets may succumb to the myth that OOH means a large entry cost, smart planning and even smarter creative mean that doesn’t have to be the case. There might even be a value exchange with the brands own tech; Seenit is another of Marketing Week’s disruptive brands and have been working the OOH industry to capture and curate user generated content for several years.

As our research shows, OOH and smartphones are a powerful combination. Emerging tech and smartphones seem inextricably linked. To build a brand and increase consumer awareness OOH is perfectly placed to not only get people thinking but to get them doing something about it.

Then, when the initial disruption subsides and it is about being the biggest and the best, you can keep the message alive with some bigger and bolder executions. You might have heard of a little disruptive taxi outfit called Uber. They are looking pretty great on posters doing just that right about now.