March 30, 2021 Reanne Duffy

It’s advertising, but not as we know it…

Advertising, to those whose sole exposure to it is to be on the receiving end, is a strange thing and, particularly since the advent of The Internet, it’s been on a strange journey.

Ad-Men of old would have given almost anything for access to the kinds of data that are around today. Inferring intent from measurable behaviours on-line allows advertisers to target output with laser-like precision on segments that can be practically as granular as one person.

So, where does that leave the juggernauts that powered advertising of old? The broadcasters, the press, the powerful players in Out-of-Home? How do these key components of the industry address the supposed advertisers’ appetites for precision?

Huge Media is a Liverpool based practitioner active in Out-of-Home advertising and is expert in getting advertisers’ messages driven home - literally. Most of its assets have wheels and are continually in the peripheral vision of its clients’ demographics in and around the city. Taxis, AdVans and Bikes are all part of its well managed media estate.

Wheeled advertisements are capable of taking advertising campaigns into areas where other media are legislated against. They penetrate well into town centres and are often the only vehicles allowed in deeply pedestrianised regions. Whereas a fleeting glimpse of an online banner may only serve to irritate, a vehicle advertisement burns a deep impression and memory of it it proven to endure.

Huge Media has risen to become its own provider of graphics and advertising livery and, in so doing, has proved itself pretty expert in design, production and application. One of the most recent of its production works really blurs the division between OoH and what might be called traditional signs and graphics. It’s new. It’s inventive. And, it’s genuinely impactful.

The client is a newly launched local DAB and online station in the city - Liverpool Live. The campaign effectively puts a small fleet of familiar looking taxis under some exquisitely designed, produced and applied advertising wraps promoting the station and its celebrities, and gets them out for a bit of Vox-Pop among their public.

That all sounds pretty conventional in terms of Taxi Advertising until you consider that ‘The Station’ is, effectively, it own media owner and broker. It doesn’t just own and operate the vehicles, they’re considered private assets and not in the scope of legislation that governs for-hire vehicles.

The talented creatives at Huge Media provided wraps for the fleet that cover the whole vehicle. Because they’re private, liberties could be taken with what would normally be considered passenger windows. They are covered with solid graphics featuring a scribble of Liverpool’s iconic skyline and the station’s celebrities waving to the audience from what would've been the cabs’ rear seats.

The rest of the wraps comprise expertly printed fields of colour swept in density and tone and featuring the station’s ID written as large as you like. They’re head-turners for sure and have rapidly become wheeled celebrities promoting hyper-local ‘broadcasting’ using what amounts to the most tightly targeted Out-of-Home campaigning.

Impressive!

The team at Huge Media are huge fans of Metamark MD5 and its super-tough MG-700 laminate and had no hesitation in recruiting it for the Liverpool Live job. Poppy, advertisers’ colours and MD5 are made for each other. Give it a lot of ink and it’ll give you a lot of colour in return.

Advertising has been on some strange diversions since the internet put the boot into print and other media. Out-of-Home though, certainly as delivered by Huge Media, that’s kicked back and its delivering messages that’ll actually be retained and reinforced.