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5 May 2021

Resilience to renaissance: Outdoor advertising and alcohol  

The alcohol industry and the outdoor advertising sector both had a rough pandemic. Here’s how Clear Channel’s client partner, Colin Horan, sees them emerging from lockdown.

The Alcohol sector underwent a massive shock to the system during the pandemic, and marketers were forced to respond with a variety of creative solutions. 

European on-trade beer sales were down 42% in 2020 and lockdowns prompted a shift in drinking habits, with a quarter of Brits who increased their alcohol consumption drinking alone.  

According to Colin Horan, client partner at Clear Channel, the out-of-home industry went through a similar experience, as people disappeared from city centres and retreated indoors amid global lockdowns. 

Clear Channel is one of the world's largest outdoor advertising companies with displays in 31 countries across Asia, Europe, Latin America and North America. Horan was speaking at Contagious’ Sector Spotlight live stream on Tuesday, which analysed the best alcohol marketing.

‘This city centre and commuter audience that we so heavily relied on in the industry completely shifted,’ said Horan. ‘It’s been an interesting time for us working with these [alcohol] brands to adjust their OOH to connect with a local, more off-trade consumer.’ But now there’s a light at the end of the tunnel and a major part of this is the return to bars and restaurants – the term Clear Channel has been using is ‘Resilience to Renaissance’. 

Horan dug into the creative opportunities for alcohol brands as lockdown restrictions ease and previously shut-in populations return to life outdoors, looking at three areas of opportunity in particular: influencing the first drink of choice, owning specific drinking occasions and social responsibility. 

First, the competition is fiercer than ever. ‘When our routine shifts, we tend to make new choices and that includes brands,’ he said. Amid a rise in zero and low-ABV variants, hard seltzers, and premium spirits, people are more open than ever to trying new brands, with 56% of people deciding between more brands than they used to.  

Another new challenge for advertisers is in-app ordering: alcohol brands are placed strategically in bars, but now that customers order through apps at their tables, the sector must think differently about how they can encourage drinkers to order their product by name. Horan points to a DOOH campaign from Guinness, when the brand alerted passersby to the nearest free pint of Guinness.  

The flexibility of DOOH also lends itself to different occasions: ads for an alcohol-free beer might run Monday-Wednesday, for instance, while ads for cans of pre-mixed gin and tonic could be displayed in close proximity to parks. Display ads for Pimms, for example, are only triggered when the sun hits a certain level, said Horan.  

Finally, social responsibility has come into sharp focus over the past year. Seventy-seven percent of people agree that brands have a duty to behave in a socially responsible way, ‘so it’s become a key driver of brand choice,’ said Horan. Many brands in the sector have been looking at more sustainable packaging solutions and brewing processes, but it’s wider than environmental issues. Just a few weeks ago, said Horan, Stella Artois used DOOH to announce it would be tipping £1 to bar staff for every pint bought in a pub.  

As a platform ‘for good as well as for brands’, Clear Channel works closely with local communities, councils and landlords, and on average, 50p of every £1 that gets invested in OOH goes back to supporting local communities, said Horan. Since 90% of millennials say they would switch to brands that champion a cause, Horan finished by offering up an idea for alcohol brands this summer in the UK: why not use OOH to prevent littering and urge people to take their bottles and cans with them after a day in the park?

If you want to download Clear Channel's slides from this presentation on outdoor advertising and alcohol brands, click here. And if you'd like to receive regular insights and creative inspiration from Clear Channel, you can sign up to the company's newsletter, here.

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