Hundreds sign up for Ocean Outdoor Covid-19 ad fund

SMEs across multiple sectors – including food and beverage, direct to consumer, health and wellness, leisure, tech and B2B – have secured free digital outdoor advertising from Ocean Outdoor’s £10m Covid-19 ad fund, with the company piling in a further £4m for good measure.

The fund was established to help businesses which have been hit hard by the coronavirus outbreak in an effort to stimulate jobs and local economies.

One month after its launch, the fund has now closed, with 300 campaigns worth £14m now running, just as the Government announces an easing of the lockdown measures meaning there will now be far more traffic on the roads.

The company’s roadside and city networks operate in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Newcastle, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Nottingham, London, Bristol and Southampton. The digital campaigns will be posted until June.

Companies which have been accepted include artisan wine merchant l’Art du Vin, Love Writing Co, digital app Printt, the Athlete Media Group (AMG) and Didsbury Gin, which switched operations to produce one million bottles of hand sanitiser in the space of seven days.

AMG chief executive and founder Mark Middlemas said: “Ocean Outdoor’s SME scheme gives a small business like us a fantastic national platform. We have never had more engagement as a business and several hugely promising new business leads have come off the back of the campaign.

“It is a difficult time for both athletes and the many charitable good causes they support so to be able to act as a force for good and deliver such a positive message for them is priceless. The fabulous lucky7 creative work has helped us to connect in a more meaningful way to a much wider audience than we could normally.”

Ocean Outdoor UK joint managing directors Phil Hall and Steve George said: “This has been an exceptional project which has without doubt helped some businesses keep their heads above the water, build brand equity, connect with new audiences and generate sales during a difficult period.

“Ocean’s sales team has been working at pace with all the business who applied, many of whom are new to out of home, to get their campaigns live. To meet demand we have also injected a further £4m into the fund.”