Live weather updates and Costa Ice recommendations in 'out of home' displays

Project Introduction

Costa Ice Come Rain or Shine

Costa wanted to increase awareness of Costa Ice and drive sales during the summer period. Costa specifically wanted to experiment with a unique dynamic element that engaged passers-by with messaging that had real-time relevance.

Graphite created a set of animated advertisements that took the ‘Hello’ campaign outdoors and aligned it with real-time weather data. The concept integrated live weather information, which triggered a weather-specific advert.

Provided Services

…This kind of innovation really stands out in the marketplace, not only that, the creative execution was especially strong. These ads have been a big part of our summer campaign.

Ben Cook - Costa UK

Dynamic Advertising

The outcome was a cohesive set of ten-second videos featuring animation, targeting messaging, dynamic weather data and location specific information. These videos were all linked to various weather types and were triggered by whatever the climate was in real-time.

We defined three main weather types- cloud, sunshine and rain, and grouped them within The Weather Network’s API so that the more granular forms of weather would sit within one of those three main groups. For example, the ‘Hello Cloudy Skies’ advert would play when it was foggy, overcast or when there was light cloud coverage. The ‘Hello Sunshine’ advert would play when it was sunny or partly cloudy and the ‘Hello British Summer’ video would play when there was anything from heavy rain to drizzle or hail to a light shower.

An additional dimension was added by including a temperature-related rule for when the mercury hit 25°c or over. On these occasions, the cloudy, sunny and rainy weather types would be over-ruled and an animation with ‘Hello Heatwave’ messaging would play.

We’re extremely proud of this activation, which was incredibly successful for Costa - with hundreds of thousands of extra products sold. We are excited to continue pushing the boundaries of the medium to deliver our clients’ messages, as well as surprising and delighting their audiences.