A poster is worth a thousand looks – the motto with which the company outdoor akzent d.o.o. is currently celebrating 20 successful years in business on the Croatian market, and a slogan many of its clients today are familiar with. Outdoor akzent is one of the largest national providers of outdoor advertising services in Croatia, a market leader in innovation in outdoor advertising that offers its customers a range of quality out-of-home media: billboard, city light, wallscape, and megaboard. The network of outdoor akzent media enables advertising at the national level – the network includes locations in Zagreb, Rijeka, Split, Osijek, Istria, Slavonia, Moslavina, Dalmatia, Dubrovnik and other regions, with a total of 2100 surfaces.
– As a leader in the field of innovations elevating the visibility of out-of-home media, we have launched a number of independent projects and introduced advertising on double formats – the doubleboard, allowing for greater creativity and more content on the poster as a medium with its 24 sq. m. Among the latest tools that increase the visibility and effectiveness of campaigns are LED campaigns and Wi-Fi posters which, in addition to targeting urban high-traffic locations, enable direct customer contact with online content. These are formats that combine outdoor and online advertising. Content like this, supported by the mass media, gives the campaign the possibility of precise targeting and audience interactivity, through online communication services, competitions, the option of downloading content and so on – explains Gabriela Klarić, CEO of outdoor akzent d.o.o.
In order to better prepare a campaign, the company outdoor akzent provides clients with research and poster campaign planning services. The most important in that regard is targeted distribution and the Poster Impact Test – a study that examines the creative effectiveness and visibility of posters.
– The media market is highly segmented and outdoor advertising is the only remaining mass medium that, with good strategic planning, becomes a medium that you cannot avoid. It’s there 24 hours a day, you don’t have to buy it, and you can’t scroll over it or turn it off – says Gabriela Klarić.
– The advantage of our medium lies in the fact that it is a mass medium, available 24 hours a day, but also offering the possibility of targeting both sales outlets and micro-locations, as well as positioning the campaign at the city, regional and national level. Our international know-how comes in handy with strategic planning and consulting clients, as well as with developing software tools related to outdoor advertising, providing the client with better insight into the campaign
and the micro-location itself. Outdoor akzent is the only company on the market whose categorisation of advertising space has been created based on research used in central Europe. Our ad space has OTS (opportunity to see), with one of the most important parameters being high traffic – she clarified.
However, in addition to strategic planning and innovation, the key to any good campaign is also a creative visual, which, in the segment that the client wants to advertise, intrigues the customer, i.e. the audience.
– It was precisely for that reason that 16 years ago we introduced OUTWARD – the award for the best large format poster, in order to stimulate better concept design development for such formats. And our latest project “Say It Loud and Clear”, which has been awarded several times by industry professionals, indicates that in modern society, with the growth of the smartphone industry, we can achieve good contact with the ad on the roadside, whereby a large format poster gives brief information and encourages a certain reaction on the part of the person who sees it – stressed Gabriela Klarić.
The “Say It Loud and Clear” project marked outdoor akzent’s 20 years in business, with the aim of emphasising the important role and great reach of billboards in advertising and demonstrating the possibilities in bringing multiple media together in an interactive campaign. The project ran in three stages: billboards invited people to suggest their messages via the Internet and vote for the best ones, after which 150 such selected messages ended up on billboards throughout Croatia. In just three weeks of the campaign, the site http://www.recitoglasno.com/ had over 300,000 unique visits from more than 140 countries around the world. More than 10,000 billboards were created, earning almost a million votes from voters, with an incredible 7.2 million clicks. The team in outdoor akzent is convinced that this shows that billboard advertising today can be a good teaser for other media and that its future is secure.
On Thursday, 1 December the 16th OUTWARD award ceremony will award the best posters among the 52 in the running that were published on official outdoor ad space throughout Croatia in the period from January 2014 to September 2016. Awards are given out in 4 categories: billboard, city light, megaboard, best media efficiency, and the best billboard poster is specially chosen by the audience.