Earlier this year, upscale Canadian fashion and lifestyle retailer Holt Renfrew teamed up with Havas and OOH ad tech firm Broadsign to create and execute a 10-week, large-scale DOOH ad campaign with the goal of capturing the market share freed up by the closing of Nordstrom.

The strategy was to leverage geographic targeting with a series of tailored ads designed to help Holts capture former Nordstrom customers, boost purchase consideration and drive foot traffic to its Canadian stores.

The programmatic digital out-of-home (pDOOH) ads ran on outdoor billboards, urban panels and bus shelters located by apartment and office buildings near and on the path to shuttered Nordstrom stores.

The campaign ran May to July 2023 to promote spring/summer savings events across retail channels for fashion and beauty brands. 

Over 200 screens were selected that were deemed more likely to reach designer shoppers, fashion and retail shoppers with household income of more than $100,000 and those who enjoy arts, culture and entertainment, and food and restaurants. Ads ran on screens from OOH publishers including Pattison (more than 13 million impressions), Astral (5 million-plus impressions), Outfront Canada (3.5-plus million impressions), and All Vision (more than 2 million impressions).

According to Broadsign, the campaign delivered more than 50 million impressions. It also yielded nearly 400,000 total store visits and drove a 600% brand preference uplift and a 725% positive brand image uplift. In addition, 50% of ad recallers that viewed an ad at least once reported intent to visit the retailer’s website, search for more information or make a purchase post-ad exposure, resulting in a 586% lift in overall intent.

Broadsign worked with measurement partners Spotzi, Happydemics, Havas and Holts to conduct a Foot Traffic and Brand Lift Study to measure the impact of the campaign. It also partnered with Connected Interactive on driving in-store visits, brand recall, awareness, and purchase intent.

Broadsign also partnered with Connected Interactive to apply an exposure radius to collect a sample of mobile devices exposed to the DOOH ads that subsequently appeared in a Holt Renfrew retail location.