The fundamental principles of poster design
Some ads turn heads. The best ones fire your memory.
Lessons for using distinctive brand assets in Out of Home advertising from our 'MemOOHries are made of this' research study.
Our latest 'MemOOHries are made of this' research reveals the simple science behind why some posters stay in your head - and crucially your memory - long after you’ve walked past them.
When you strip everything back, it’s not rocket science. It’s great advertising. And it all comes down to two simple questions.
How well is it known?
Effective posters only work if they tie your ad to your brand. Recognition before recall.
That’s where Distinctive Brand Assets come in. They're the cues that trigger a brand in your memory, even when a logo’s nowhere in sight.
Colours. Shapes. Typefaces. Taglines. Tone. All opportunities for your brand to be known for.
They’re not just creative details; they’re memory shortcuts. Which leads us to our first question: Do enough people have an existing memory of my brand signals to use them in my advertising?
To understand your brand cues, you can use Fame and Uniqueness scores by asking people to identify your ads where no direct brand signals exist. No logo. No brand name.
So, start by asking: is it known? Do your brand assets already live in memory - and if not, are you helping people learn them? Because the more famous your cues, the faster and more accurately people will recall you.
How well is it seen?
Once your assets are understood, to be effective, they need to be seen.
As Jenni Romaniuk says: “Copy that looks good on a computer screen or a printed sheet of paper can fail in real life.” Most Out of Home creative testing tools provide results based on computer screen testing. Are they large enough on a real outdoor advertising location?
Which presents question two: Are the brand signals on my poster large enough to be seen?
Our eye-tracking research proved it: the bigger, better and bolder the branding, the stronger the recall. When logos and brand signals were too weak or too small - recall dropped. When they dominate the frame - attention and recognition go up.
Ask yourself: is it seen? If your brand signals wouldn’t grab you from across the street, they won’t grab your audience either. It continues the case to understand how to design posters.
Confidence and consistency creates clarity
“Distinctive assets are not inherent: they need to be learned by consumers. Until the links between distinctive element and the brand are learned they cannot function as a substitute of the brand.” Byron Sharp, 2018
Across every MemOOHries test, well branded posters outperform unbranded or complex creatives - not just in recall, but likability too. In some simple advice - if in doubt, call the brand out.
Strong branding doesn’t dilute creativity - it amplifies it and crucially, makes it more effective. That’s how a poster becomes unmistakably yours. If you don't have any unique or ownable Distinctive Brand Assets yet, fear not. Out of Home can help you get there. They’re learned through reach, repetition and co-presentation - seeing the asset and brand name together, again and again, until the connection is automatic.
“We [humans] learn connections between related information when they are presented together.”
Nicole Hartnett, Ehrenberg-Bass Institute
“The strongest distinctive assets are famous among customers and non-customers alike. To achieve such fame, a brand must reach out to all potential buyers, teaching them the connection between brand and asset.”
Nicole Hartnett
“A function of classical conditioning, the most fundamental building block of learning and memory, repeated pairing of stimulus.”
WARC, The Role of Distinctive Brand Assets
