Title	JCDECAUX: PERSONAL BILLBOARDS
Brand	JCDECAUX
Product/Service	OUTDOOR MEDIA
Category	C07. Corporate Image & Communication
Entrant Company	BBDO BELGIUM Brussels, BELGIUM
Advertising Agency	BBDO BELGIUM Brussels, BELGIUM

Name	Company	Position
Arnaud Pitz/Sebastien De Valck	BBDO Belgium	Creative Directors
Toon Vanpoucke/Morgane Choppinet	BBDO Belgium	Creative Team
Marleen Depreter	BBDO Belgium	Account Manager
Isabel Peeters	BBDO Belgium	Chief Commercial Officer
Veerle Colin	JCDecaux Belgium	Marketing Director
Els Desmedt	JCDecaux Belgium	Sales Director

The Brief

JC Decaux gives presentations to inform clients about the possibilities of outdoor advertising. This year, we focused on the fact that even in these modern times, outdoor is still a very effective medium. But every year, we struggle with the same issue: Belgium Leading marketing directors (Coca-Cola, Renault, ...) never have the time to attend our presentations. As they don’t have the time to listen, we wanted marketing directors to experience for themselves how effective outdoor is.

Campaign Success

Without asking their permission, we put a photo of each marketing director on a single billboard along with their name and an email address of JCDecaux during one week. Then we waited for a reaction, so they could tell us themselves how effective outdoor still is. Every billboard was strategically placed in the environment of each director.

Describe the success of the promotion with both client and consumer including some quantifiable results

They reacted exactly how we wanted: Confused, shocked and a little annoyed that people kept contacting them to know what the purpose was. We responded with an email apologizing for any inconvenience: “We just wanted you to experience the effectiveness of outdoor advertising, As you got so many reactions from only one single billboard …Just imagine what our entire network could do for your brand!”. Then, we invited them to sign up for our presentation… Why wouldn’t they free up some of their time now? After all, they experienced the effectiveness of outdoor for themselves.

Explain why the method of promotion was most relevant to the product or service

With this campaign, we wanted to promote our annual presentations about the possibilities of outdoor. But our target, Belgium biggest marketing directors, are very busy people. So we had to find a way to really grab their attention so they were motivated to come to the presentation.