Mercado Libre has presented “Custom Billboards”, a campaign that redefines the role of outdoor advertising by introducing personalization in real time and turning billboards into a direct sales channel. The initiative, developed by GUT Buenos Aires in collaboration with Sarmiento and Zetab, is based on the premise that if the platform is capable of offering each user what they need in the digital environment, its messages on the street should respond to that same sales promise.
The campaign uses artificial intelligence and image recognition to analyze variables in the environment at the moment of impact. From this information, each medium generates a specific message and selects a product from the Mercado Libre catalog that fits the situation and the person exposed to it.
Thus, the same billboard can show different solutions depending on the moment and the result is dynamic creativity that seeks to increase the relevance of the message in an environment where attention is increasingly limited.
In this case, each impact is presented as a unique opportunity to connect with the user. Creativity thus ceases to be a closed piece and becomes a system capable of adapting and responding to the context. “The idea was simple: if people ignore what is not relevant to them, then let’s make every message relevant”explained Joaquín Campins, Chief Creative Officer of GUT Buenos Aires.
One of the key elements of the initiative is the incorporation of QR codes in each piece. This functionality allows the user to go from exposure to the message to the purchasing action immediately, connecting the physical support with the Mercado Libre digital platform. In this way, the campaign reduces the usual path between advertising impact and conversion, something that has traditionally been difficult to achieve in public spaces.
“Custom Billboards introduce a new way of thinking about public roads: it stops being a one-size-fits-all message and becomes a personalized, dynamic and actionable experience”said Valeria Bazzi, Senior Director of Branding and Communication at Mercado Libre. “Not only do we show the right product at the right time, but we also close the cycle: each impact can become a purchase.”
The incorporation of artificial intelligence and real-time data opens the door to a model in which public roads cease to be a static space and begin to behave as a dynamic environment, with the capacity to adapt and respond.
In this sense, Mercado Libre proposes an evolution of the medium towards a more active role within the purchasing process. The mupi connects directly to the product catalog and facilitates the transaction, bringing outdoor advertising closer to standards typical of the digital environment.
