Ambient Marketing

Ambient marketing is a way of promoting products or services using unusual locations or items and their elements to your advantage as a communication channel. It involves creative advertising messaging, interacting with the target audience, and should affect consumers on an emotional level.

In this video, you can see an ambient marketing campaign from Coca-Cola. The company put a special Coke machine at a bus stop in a Swedish city.

Why should brands consider ambient marketing?

According to MarketingWeek, 65% of UK consumers say that diversity in advertising formats is important to them. This indicates that modern marketers think not only about traditional ads but non-standard ways to promote their products as well. When conventional advertising is no longer surprising enough, ambient marketing comes to the rescue.

The term ‘ambient media’ appeared in Great Britain in the 1990s and was defined as visual advertising in uncommon places. When developing an ambient ad, paying considerable attention to creativity and using an unconventional approach to provide deeper contact with prospects and customers is important. It is important that people passing by stop, look at it, and tell their friends about what they saw.

Ambient ads are considered a more effective product promotion than conventional outdoor advertising. Studies have shown that billboard advertisers have a vehicle passenger’s attention for about six seconds, while creative advertising can increase this indicator to a minute or even more. Also, it helps improve the ad’s effectiveness and can be an integral part of social media marketing. On the one hand, brands can create an unconventional ad and share it on social networks using a hashtag. On the other hand, people can take pictures, make videos of this creative advertising and share it on social media using the brand's hashtag, thereby building brand awareness.

Now that you know why companies should use ambient ads in their campaigns, let’s walk you through the benefits of this type of brand promotion.

Creative ambient ads that convey a strong message are unique in design and appear in unexpected locations to make people talk about your brand. Here are several benefits of using ambient marketing for your campaign.

Grabs attention

In our modern world, where there is an incredible amount of advertising, it is really difficult to stand out to attract prospects or customers. That is why companies should come up with something brand-new and unique.

It is a well-known fact that to grab people’s attention, you should create a positive emotional feeling, surprise consumers, and build an emotional roller coaster. Here comes ambient advertising that can draw attention by creating interesting objects, unusual billboards, and useful items, and placing them in unexpected locations.

Can go viral

If your ad affects people emotionally and has distinctive features and practical value, it can easily go viral. In a world shaped by technology, people can easily take photos and videos and share them on social media like Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. This is how you can expand your audience. This doesn’t mean that it can immediately boost your sales, but it can boost your brand recognition at the very least.

Low cost

An ambient ad is about using unconventional promotional methods to engage with the audience. This means that it won’t cost you much to implement such advertising into your marketing strategy. Find a creator for your future ambient ad and decide on a perfect location.

Non-intrusive

One of the main benefits of ambient ads is that they convey a brand's message clearly and don't enter customers’ personal space. With some unique constructions, murals, and unusual objects on the streets, you can’t make people become your customers. However, if you manage to intrigue people passing by, they may tell others about your brand. Their friends and colleagues are more likely to purchase your product of their own free will.

Reaches a wider audience

Usually, marketers choose popular places or busy streets to put their ambient ads. The more people see it, the better for a brand. With the help of this type of marketing, you can reach not only your customers but also prospects or people just passing by. The object that conveys your marketing message can build brand awareness for different audiences.

Memorable

Ambient ads allow people to see your brand from a completely new side. Such campaigns evoke strong emotions using experimental promotion techniques, so consumers remember a brand. Sometimes this form of advertising can evoke emotions such as shock or fear to achieve brand awareness.

Let's look at several ambient marketing examples from well-known brands. This will give you the opportunity to see this type of marketing in action.

References:

1. The article “Key Benefits of Ambient Advertising” on the Khushi Advertising blog defines the main advantages of ambient marketing.
2. The article “Ambient Marketing” on the Know Online Advertising blog defines the term and the benefits of ambient marketing as well as provides some examples.

Last Updated: 07.11.2023