by Martina Lacey

Contrary to what some believe, due to a certain feature that appeared in M&M last year under my watch, I am a big fan of out-of-home media. I would go as far as to say that OOH is my favourite platform.

Why is it my favourite? Well due to all of the creative, engaging and sometimes somewhat outright absurd things that you can do with it. Case in point the current work that JCDecaux has done in the UK for McCain and its new Ready Baked Jacket Potato range. For those not familiar with the awesomeness that is a jacket potato, it is basically a baked potato filled with toppings ranging from baked beans to my personal favourite tuna and sweet corn.

I know what you are thinking, why would anyone want to buy ‘ready-made’ jacket potatoes when they can already pop ‘non-readymade’ potatoes into the microwave when in a rush or in the oven. Who knows and that is a whole other blog post. But back to JCDecaux.

As part of the marketing push for its new range McCain wanted to recreate the in-home experience of its new product to consumers in the streets, so naturally it turned to OOH. The result of this brief is 3D, 2-feet high, fibre-glass jacket potatoes appearing on bus shelters across the UK that heat up and smell of oven-baked jacket potatoes. But wait, it gets even better! The bus shelters also dispense money off coupons.

The images for this campaign speak for themselves and almost have me convinced that Ready Baked Jackets are a good idea – but not quite. However, one thing that it does cement is my love for OOH and the innovation that comes along with it. We might not have smell-o-vision yet but who needs it when we have interactive jacket potatoes rolling around the place!