Marketing Masterclass: Beyond bus ads, what the World Cup can teach us about out‑of‑home marketing

For many of us, when we think about out-of-home marketing, we think of ‘bus ads and billboards,’ but there’s so much more to this marketing niche, and Channel Islands businesses could embrace it more.

What is OOH?

Out-of-home (OOH) marketing is any advertising that reaches people when they’re not sitting on the sofa scrolling their phone. That’s your classic billboards, bus wraps, bench ads, and digital screens in malls, airports and busy streets. Done well, OOH doesn’t just get seen; it becomes something people talk about, photograph and share, which means you get offline and online attention for the price of one campaign.

Could we take a slice of this World Cup energy?

With the World Cup season kicking off, brands have been paying astronomical amounts to adorn stadium walls, digital perimeter boards, fan zones, merch, holograms, the lot. They already know that people don’t just experience brands on a screen; they experience them in queues, traffic jams, beer gardens and fan parks.

Now, you probably don’t have a World Cup‑sized budget, I mean, who does?!. But the thinking still applies locally: how can you show up where people are already gathered, excited and paying attention? Festivals, beach events, parades, races; all prime OOH territory in Jersey and Guernsey.

OOH Marketing: more than bus wraps

Here, we tend to think of OOH as “stick your logo on a bus and job done”. There’s nothing wrong with bus advertising; it gives you repeated visibility, and a full wrap can look pretty impressive as the bus trundles through town. But if that’s as far as your imagination goes, you’re leaving a lot on the table.

Think back to the Branchage festival, when they projected moving imagery onto Gorey Castle and St Aubin’s Fort. It set a ridiculously high bar for how creative you can be with physical space. That’s the same principle you see at big tournaments now: holographic imagery, projection mapping and other tech temporarily splashing brands onto buildings, water, even smoke. The beauty of that kind of approach is that it’s temporary. The space goes back to normal afterwards, but the impact sticks in people’s heads.

Imagine Liberation Group lighting up the incinerator during the Havre des Pas festival, turning an eyesore into a tongue‑in‑cheek landmark for a weekend. You’d talk about it, wouldn’t you? You’d probably take a photo. That’s OOH doing its job.

Guerrilla ideas that get people talking

OOH doesn’t have to be huge; it just has to be noticeable. We’ve already got a local classic: the Easygrass smart car covered in fake grass. You see it once, you clock the name. See it twice, and you remember it. See it three times, you’re telling someone about “that grass car that’s always around town”.

Could you imagine Carpathia vans covered in (tasteful, on‑brand) fake cannabis leaves? You might love it, you might hate it, but you wouldn’t ignore it. You’d point it out. You’d have an opinion. That’s the mark of effective out‑of‑home marketing: you force people to talk about your brand.

And then there’s one of Jersey’s most iconic marketeers, Roland Topf. Now he was the original guerrilla marketer. Do you remember him running up and down King Street dressed like Jim Cary from The Mask, flyers in hand, flanked by a squad of people in full costume? Was it slick? Not really. Was it cool? Debatable. Was it effective? Absolutely. Because it was impossible to miss, and impossible not to talk about.

Boots on the ground beats social media

There, I’ve been bold enough to say it. For many businesses, OOH is just this: buy a bus ad, boost a couple of social posts, and tick “marketing” off the to‑do list. The problem is, your customers are drowning in that kind of marketing.

The stuff that cuts through is often the scrappy, boots‑on‑the‑ground activity:

• A team out at events, branded up, talking to people
• A clever vehicle wrap that doubles as a moving billboard
• Temporary projections or installations that hijack a landmark for a weekend
• Street teams handing out something genuinely useful or entertaining, not just yet another flyer

It’s not about being obnoxious; it’s about being present. Getting your backside off your office chair, as King Roley would no doubt tell you, and going to where your customers actually are.

OOH at its finest is not just a poster on a wall. It’s a living, breathing presence in the places your customers move through every day. If you can surprise them, make them smile, or give them a story to tell at the pub that night, you’re doing it right.