Out of Home driving In the Home

Our recent note – 10 bets for 2021 – highlighted the unprecedented acceleration in the transition to ecommerce in 2020. As the NYU Marketing Professor Scott Galloway aptly put it: “Historically, the percentage of retail done on digital channels has gone up 1% a year. And as of March 2020 it was at 18%, and then in eight weeks it went to 28%! We had a decade in eight weeks.”

These are permanent shifts. We’re not going back.

Perhaps in a strange twist of fate, this continuing shift to in home consumption has been partially fuelled by creative use of Out of Home advertising. Supermarket digital screens continue to be heavily used by brands taking advantage of one of the few consistent audiences out of the home, promoting both in-store grocery shopping as well as online. That trend is an acceleration of pre-Covid activity.

The subtle other ‘out of home transition’ has been to hyper local. Home delivery services, such as Just Eat and Deliveroo, have focused their lockdown Out of Home activity on suburban areas where people have still been very active, visiting local open spaces and essential amenities rather than commuting.

Other ‘in-home’ winners like Netflix, Depop, Zwift and Peloton have seen sales soar and have continued to use Out of Home as a key medium to drive customer acquisition. Why? Because it works and audiences are still out there.

Every parent’s favourite exercise guide, Joe Wicks, has provided numerous free online sessions (and childcare hours) during lockdown. He too has been using Out of Home to promote the launch of his new app.

Media owners, similarly, are responding to these trends with greater flexibility and thoughtfulness about how to package their media. In the Joe Wicks case customising the pricing of activity based off fitness orientated audiences as opposed to priced against generic cost per panel rates.

As the world re-emerges from its enforced hibernation many former rituals will return: commuting and the office are not dead, and nor is high street retail. With the dramatic adoption of ecommerce last year it’s easy to forget that over 70% of all commerce still happens in the physical world.

From bringing love and humour, or gentle reminders that their business is still operating, through to simple thank you messages, online brands are still engaging the lockdown audience Out of Home. Aside from the commercial success of increased sales, these ‘in-home’ brands have shown a connected awareness about what society is collectively going through at present, and that they are listening, sensitive and engaged.