Circle Graphics Chairman, Rod Rackley has written a great white paper called The Creative Multiplier on the importance of keeping out of home creative fresh.  We asked Rod to explain.

I listened to a talk that John Morgan, the largest buyer of out of home advertising in the country, gave at last year’s OAAA.  When the biggest customer in the room explains how he uses your product, you listen.

Here is the argument in three sentences. Excellent creative is the price of admission; nothing fixes a weak message. But even excellent creative loses effectiveness when it’s up too long unchanged, because the human brain is built to stop responding to what it has already seen. The advertisers who get the most out of the medium keep the location, keep the brand, and change the copy – and by doing so they multiply the value of media they have already bought.  I cite the research behind this in my paper.

Plan copy changes up front…time each change to a business moment: a launch, a season, an event, a new proof point, so the change has meaning.  I spent my career on the production side and I will say plainly what experience taught me: the cost of printing and installing a new face is small; the cost of a market that has stopped seeing your board is not.

Build a sequence which adds information or advances the story.  Exploit context; day, time, weather, location and live events but keep the recognition cues intact.  Dynamic does not mean visually chaotic.