The research, which is based on viewers’ emotional response data to 50 OOH adverts captured via an OOH tool on System1’s Test Your Ad platform, found that OOH adverts that matched TV adverts scored 62% on two-second brand recognition compared with 30% for adverts that did not replicate those from television.

OOH ads matching TV achieved an average star rating on Test Your Ad of 3.1 stars and a spike rating of 1.1 compared with 2.8 stars and 0.9 spike for adverts that did not have a consistent creative thread.

System1 and JCDecaux have also created best practice for OOH adverts, including using bold branding, recurring characters and scenarios, keeping the advert simple and maintaining a consistent look and feel.

Andrew Tindall, global partnerships director at System1, said: “Christmas OOH ads perform nearly a full star better on long-term brand building than the average for non-festive OOH ads.

“We’ve seen the same positive effect with this season’s radio ads, further highlighting the value of consistently applying creative best practices across the media mix. Distinctiveness is key so it’s great to see so many brands applying their well-known assets again and again.”

Chris Felton, director of data and insight at JCDecaux UK, added: “We have seen so many advertisers create fantastic Christmas TV ads packed with emotion – this new research reaffirms our belief that OOH will enhance your TV campaign by amplifying this emotion across the country as people work, shop, socialise and commute.

“TV and OOH are proven to work well together as complementary brand-building media and by following the guidelines in this report, clients’ campaigns will work even harder, driving results through the brand funnel.”