December and January may be when you clock off and forget about work. For us, it’s the opposite.
Summer is prime time for street posters.
Your audience will be out and about, having fun and spending money. Don’t be fooled by the absence of rush hour traffic. It doesn’t mean everyone’s left town – it just means their travel patterns have changed. Instead of catching the bus (and being exposed to posters on their way to work), your audience is going to the local beach (and being exposed to posters outside the dairy).
Smart marketers are already booking Phantom’s prime sites over the summer. They’re flogging Boxing Day sales, cool drinks, summer snacks, and festival tickets.
Maybe you should join them.
The Summer of Phantom Billstickers
We’ve got over 6,500 poster frames ready to carry your message. From holiday hotspots like Hawkes Bay and Tauranga to the main metros, Phantom is where your customers are going to be.
Plenty of people will be enjoying a staycation, and Auckland will still be the country’s biggest population hub. Around 200,000 people leave the big smoke over the holiday period, but that still leaves well over a million pairs of eyeballs in town. It’s a similar story in Wellington and Christchurch.
Like you, we’re hanging out for the warm weather and long days of summer.
We’ve taken a dive into the reasons behind this. Read more.
Digital is good.
Digital plus posters isGREAT!
The bottom line is that digital is great at closing the sale. Tapping or clicking are usually the simplest way to register your details, buy tickets, or grab that special offer.
But first you have to create an emotional connection. And that’s when posters come to the fore.
When your audience encounters your image larger than life in the street, they’re primed to notice it even more when it pops up in their social feed.
Everybody should have the opportunity to own the streets.
This is your chance to lock in Phantom’s best sites at the very best price, so your brand can absolutely dominate.
It’s not just a ‘package.’ It’s an opportunity for every advertiser – from scrappy start-ups to the big beasts of the urban jungle – to get access to Phantom’s premium locations.
More than that – you get the planning smarts of our account managers to ensure your campaign is seen by all the right eyes.
There’s only one catch. You’ll have be quicker than a Taylor Swift fan on ticket release day, as these world-class sites won’t be available for long
At Phantom, we’ve been thinking hard about our carbon footprint. The climate crisis isn’t going away and, if nothing else, building owners are facing some real risks with insurance premiums. So what does Phantom offer as a responsible business partner and wannabe good corporate citizen?
One answer is: Hit the off switch.
That’s why last month we began switching off our digital posters between the hours of midnight and 5am. This single action reduces a site’s energy usage by 20% at a stroke, while having almost no effect on viewership (i.e. what our clients are paying for).
Here are some other things we’ve learned in our mission to decarbonise our business.
Step 1. You can only manage what you measure
We’ve talked before about the importance of having an accurate gauge of the actual carbon impact of your busines. That’s why Phantom worked with Toitū to audit our operations in 2020 and 2021.
Having analysed our carbon impact down to the last Uber ride, we were able to target reductions and achieve Net Carbon Zero status.
This process is ongoing. We’re currently in the process of repeating our Toitū audit to make sure we stay on track. In essence, we’re continuing to reduce our carbon footprint year on year, with no end in sight.
Step 2. Go hard on all fronts
There’s a bit of a tendency in society to look for a one-stop solution. Offsetting carbon emissions by sponsoring tree planting is one example.
We think this is the wrong framework for delivering change.
By all means plant trees, but every organisation should also be taking a hard look at the specific impacts of its operations, and coming up with better solutions.
So as well as switching off outdoor screens during the wee small hours, Phantom has committed to using sustainable inputs, such as Greenguard inks that do not emit harmful chemicals. All Phantom’s poster frames are made from plantation-grown pine, and we’re progressively converting our vehicle fleet to EVs.
And since we’re one of the country’s largest printers, with 6,500 poster frames to fill every week, we guarantee that all our posters are printed on paper from sustainably managed plantations. Finally, all our poster campaigns are recycled once they’ve had their time in Phantom’s frames.
Step 3. Work together
There are encouraging signs that industry groups and global bodies are looking to cooperate more to reduce the impact of their operations. It can’t just be left to governments and individual families.
In our corner of the business – the outdoor media sector – we think we’ve got a great story to tell. But we need to get better at helping advertisers understand the implications of what we’re selling them.
Sustainability needs to be baked into all measurement methodology. This is not just a nice-to-have; it needs to be measured with the same ferocious intent that delivers ROI. The gold standard would be a carbon calculator included on every media schedule.
On the topic of measurement, thanks to global best-practice guidelines introduced in 2022, there is a burgeoning marketplace of off-the-shelf measurement solutions. It’s great to see that by creating common standards the market is starting to deliver innovative and sustainable measurement
So how does this affect our business partners?
Apart from us all being on the same planet, facing the same systemic challenge of climate change, we think that property owners benefit from having a proactive partner like Phantom.
One with a long-term view.
We want to see street posters standing proud on walls for years to come – earning revenue for all our partners.
For that to happen, we need our business model to be fit for the 21st century, with buy-in from city councils and the general public whose consent we all ultimately rely on.
Switching off our digital screens at midnight, changing our fleet to EVs, and continuing to reduce our carbon footprint every year are all part of the process.
It’s not about darkness. It’s about the light at the end of the tunnel.
The traffic-stopping special build for Amazon Prime’s season 3 launch of The Boys has won global recognition at the 2023 World Out Of Home (WOOH) awards.
The creative, which featured a giant visage of Karl Urban shooting ‘laser beams’ from his eyes into a strategically placed car wreck on Newton Road, garnered coverage around the world. It has now made it onto the six-strong WOOH shortlist for best Creative Classic OOH campaign.
The creative was a collaboration between Phantom Billstickers and Mediabrands Content Studio, along with media agencies Billie Media and Rufus powered by Initiative.
As well as reaching tens of thousands of viewers passing by the site each day, The Boys campaign ignited attention around the world. Fans organically shared content to the global Reddit thread r/TheBoys (545K members), and the site was digitally recreated within the world of Grand Theft Auto: Online in Brazil.
WOOH CMO Richard Saturley says: “We have had more entries than ever for the Digital and Classic Creative Awards and the quality has never been higher. Especially pleasing is that entries came from all over the world and that’s reflected in the two excellent shortlists.”
Phantom CEO Robin McDonnell says the company is “quietly thrilled” by the way a bold client and some no-holds-barred brainstorming led to a world-class solution.
“The Boys launch shows what’s possible when everything comes together,” McDonnell says. “New Zealand agencies and marketers have shown themselves unafraid to stretch the possibility of the medium.”
“Challenge us! We’ve got a passion for posters and the practical capability to deliver off-the-wall ideas – right down to sourcing and placing a wrecked car.
“Phantom has some of Aotearoa’s top sites, just waiting for you to populate them with the next global award-winning idea.”
The WOOH award winners will be named during the organisation’s annual Congress, to be held at Lisbon on 7-9 June 2023.
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