How to get a WOW from your OOH
Commuters in the tunnel connecting St Pancras and King's Cross St Pancras stations recently had the chance to smell an evolution in OOH advertising. Magnum's latest multi-sensory advertisement featured not only typical visual assets, but also the smell of chocolate piped into the air and sounds of cracking chocolate playing.
The UK market is well-suited to this kind of activation, driven by a consumer base that is both highly exposed to OOH and increasingly responsive to it. In the UK, 98% of consumers see OOH ads every week (1). Of those exposed, 46% go on to search for the brand online, and 26% visit its website directly (1). Among Gen Z, 91% say they'd reshare a compelling OOH ad on social media; among Millennials, the figure is 82% (1). A single great activation can become its own organic distribution engine.
95% of purchasing decisions driven by emotion (1), and experiential OOH at its best is the medium most capable of delivering both massive reach and emotional impact. But success in OOH is not guaranteed. Activations are resource intensive and can do more damage than good if not planned with care.
Below we’ll explore how to get a WOW from your OOH, get perspectives from AI personas on Magnum’s latest campaign, and explore how Virtual Audiences can help to make your next OOH campaign stick the landing.
The most common failure is also the most basic: poor location choice, where the site simply doesn't align with the intended audience (3). Close behind are visibility problems caused by obstructions, overloaded messaging so it can't be absorbed in seconds, and activations that clash with their surroundings rather than enhancing them (3). The consequences aren't just wasted spend either. Poor OOH placement can lead to reputational damage and a domino effect on future campaigns (3).
UK consumers engaging with experiential OOH have become sophisticated readers of their environment. They can tell the difference between a brand that has genuinely thought about its place in public space and one that has simply borrowed a large canvas. Campaigns that feel generic, overly commercial, or out of touch with local values aren't just ignored, they're viewed negatively. A failed OOH experience is typically characterised by intrusiveness, irrelevance, and a lack of authenticity (3).
What Magnum’s choice of location illustrates how important the right pairing of brand and location is. As a food brand, Magnum sits comfortably within the categories that tend to find experiential OOH a natural fit — brands in tech, entertainment, food, and beverages generally have an intuitive claim on public space (3). A high-footfall tunnel delivers plenty of reach, and the enclosed environment creates an intensity of experience that open spaces can't replicate. But a train tunnel is not somewhere people expect to eat ice cream. It sits outside the natural consumption context, which means that the activation must work harder to bridge that gap using scent and sound to conjure the product experience rather than relying on the setting to do it naturally.
This is where Virtual Audiences earn their place in the planning process. Before committing to a location or design, teams can use AI personas to simulate how real audiences are likely to think of the activation. Would piping chocolate scent through a busy tunnel feel delightful or intrusive? Testing location options and sensory concepts early surfaces these friction points when they're still in the planning stage, not after the installation is live.
Getting OOH right in the UK means understanding that "the UK" is not a single market. Success depends on understanding the distinct characteristics of different cities and the people living within them (2, 4). Testing in regional hubs before scaling to London is increasingly common practice, precisely because what resonates in one city doesn't always translate to another (4). Brands that tailor campaigns to specific cultural events (such as Ramadan or Diwali) and use multilingual creatives where demographics call for it consistently outperform those applying a one-size-fits-all approach (4).
The St Pancras tunnel is a high-footfall interchange connecting international and domestic rail and drawing a diverse mix of travelers. In a location like this where the audience is so varied in background, nationality and expectation, the execution must be carefully considered to land widely. Getting it right means thinking beyond the average passerby and designing for the full spectrum of people who move through that space.
Virtual Audiences allows teams to probe these dimensions before a single creative decision is locked in. Each AI persona will react uniquely, surfacing key differences early on. This allows teams to anticipate cultural sensitivities and plan around them, rather than discovering and reacting to issues or complaints after the campaign is live.
Sustainability and ethical practices are increasingly important to UK consumers (1, 3), and a large-scale sensory installation featuring extensive production invites scrutiny on environmental impact. For eco-conscious consumers, the enjoyability of the activation is much less important than its impact on the environment. Brands use spectacle without considering its footprint risk alienating the very audiences they're trying to reach (3). Incorporating eco-friendly materials and transparent practices into OOH production is no longer a differentiator, it's a baseline expectation (3).
The scale of physical production across a major transport hub for Magnum's tunnel activation meant that they were widely visible to audiences who think carefully about consumption. Installing scent machines and other large-scale OOH assets pushes creative boundaries, but each element carries a lifecycle that extends well beyond the moment of audience contact. Production, set up, maintenance, pack down, and disposal all form part of the environmental footprint that eco-conscious consumers are increasingly likely to interrogate. For a brand operating at this scale, in this space, that scrutiny is inevitable. For some consumers, the ambition of the execution is what makes it impressive; for others, it is the first thing they question. Both reactions are predictable and managable if you have done the work to understand your audience in advance.
Virtual Audiences give teams a way to pressure-test sustainability concerns before production decisions are finalised. Running an eco-conscious AI persona through activation concepts will surface the questions that audiences are likely to have about the execution before production begins. That knowledge can inform material choices, on-site messaging, pack-down plans, or the decision to make environmental commitments explicit rather than assumed.
Reach is not the same as impact. A high-footfall location guarantees exposure; it doesn't guarantee that the execution will land positively across the range of people who encounter it. The variables that determine success (location fit, cultural relevance, and environmental responsibility) each require active decisions, not reactions.
Cultural sensitivities, sustainability concerns, and audience-specific responses to sensory scale are all knowable in advance, if the questions are asked before production is locked. Discovering them after the installation is live means absorbing the consequences rather than designing around them.
Experiential OOH works when brands earn their place in public space through the quality of their thinking, not just the scale of their spend. Using a tool like Virtual Audiences to explore challenges in advance will help you to ensure that your next OOH activation gets a WOW from everyone who gets to experience it.
For a closer look at how Virtual Audiences can help brands to monitor audience perceptions and pressure test scenarios, book a demo here.
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