Square Yards’ new traffic halting humour brings an edge to OOH advertising

If you are from Delhi-NCR, Mumbai or Bengaluru, you must have noticed those big yellow billboards with one-liners. And, if you take a closer look, you will notice that these ads are by Square Yards, a real estate and mortgage platform.

The campaign by Platinum Outdoor, Madison World’s outdoor specialist agency, is conceptualised with the specific aim of building awareness about the brand and increasing traffic to its website.

The ads are placed at impact locations in Delhi-NCR, Mumbai and Bengaluru. These include airports, key congregation points like Western/Eastern Express Highway, Juhu, Mahim Causeway, Navi Mumbai, Thane, Moti Bagh Ring Road, MG Road, Dhaula Kuan, Rajouri Garden, Delhi-Noida Direct (DND), Connaught Place (CP), Hebbal Flyover, Mysore Road, to name few .

For the campaign, Platinum Outdoor has taken up a large hoarding (120 ft x 122 ft) in Mumbai. It is on one of the busiest locations of Bandra ROB and caters to the traffic from South Mumbai and Worli Sea Link towards the Western Express Highway.

The provocative phrases on the billboards, like ‘Can we ask your wife out on a date?’, ‘Threesome on your bucket list?’, ‘Theka kitni door hai?’ and ‘Size does matter’ have actually managed to help the brand drive the desired traffic to its website.

In a LinkedIn post, Kanika Gupta Shori, founder & COO at Square Yards, shared the responses that the OOH campaign has received.

Social media users and brand experts argue that being outdoor ads, they are not just visible to young adults, but also people of all age groups, including kids.

The comment section of Shori’s post is filled with interesting opinions on the campaign.

A user says, “Before drawing up an outdoor media communication strategy, one should take note of the social impact on the larger audience seeing such an advertisement. One must consider that young kids are also seeing such advertisements, which negatively impact their young minds at a very sensitive age...”

Another user opines, “... the brand name either should have been better visible or outshined. I presume these hoardings are on busy roads and highways, where folks have a fraction of a second to look…”

Artthi Ponnuswamy, vice president, brand solutions, Zensciences, shared her thoughts about the campaign in a LinkedIn post. "... After a long time, a real estate platform, in an over-saturated and mature market, has been able to break the clutter with its loud and bold campaign. Just for that, the brand deserves a big round of applause."

However, she also mentions that somewhere along the way, they (the ads) lost the plot and became all about shock value and attention seeking.

She adds, "In fact, my daughter was questioning on why a real estate brand would talk about 'Threesome'. The messaging seems convoluted and the product features seem to have been included as an afterthought. While the campaign objectives must have been met, Square Yards lost a huge opportunity to establish itself as a cool new-age trustworthy brand."

Commenting on the campaign, Yashdeep Singh, principal partner and head of marketing, Square Yards, said in a press note, “... We are in the thick of disrupting the property industry through our digital home-buying services. This impactful mega innovative outdoor blitz will educate, inform and equip people to experience these services when they buy a home.”

“We are happy to have had Platinum Outdoor on board as our outdoor media partner, as its immense experience has ensured smooth planning and execution for us. We are sure that we will be able to light up the outdoor space with our visual branding displays by leveraging its (Platinum Outdoor's) valuable expertise.”

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