The Cultural Moments you can’t ignore
They’re the quotes you know off by heart. The colours that immediately evoke the feeling of championship point on centre court. Cultural moments capture a feeling that is irresistible to audiences and priceless for brands.
Talon’s most recent benchmarks for 2025 found that brands that used OOH to leverage pop culture moments saw an increase in purchase intent, recall, and relevance.
The Ubiquitous team regularly see how OOH formats like taxi advertising help create the moments you can’t help but reshare. Here’s what a ubiquitous format can offer.
OOH is easy to schedule
Both traditional and non-traditional formats can be scheduled to a certain time and place. Digital OOH can align with the first serve on centre court at 2:30pm, while traditional formats like taxis can be scheduled to start rolling past centre court at the same time. Take our most recent PR effort for Stella Artois at Wimbledon. Ten taxis were an illustrious presence near Southfields station, picking up tennis-hungry fans and dropping them off at the ticket gates at Wimbledon. Taxis helped Stella weave their brand into the very fabric of the event.
Talon and their benchmarks research found that cultural moments in OOH messaging deliver higher action. The Ubiquitous team have seen an increase in purchase intent first-hand, with Attest research conducted post-campaign for a market-leading skincare brand finding that audiences who viewed a branded taxi were more likely to purchase the product in-store.
OOH offers interactive experiences
OOH formats are a tangible touchpoint that create triggers in the minds of audiences thanks to its presence in the places where they eat, shop, and play. HSBC understood this when they contracted Ubiquitous for a special build to celebrate their partnership with the historied Queens Tournament in West Kensington. Besides the attention grabbed by a giant tennis racquet attached to the top of a branded HSBC cab, they also parked one cab outside Kings Cross station for a competition that allowed fans to win two free tickets to the women’s final at the Queens Club. All they had to do was count how many tennis balls were inside the cab for a chance to win!
It's another interesting example of why interactive experiences work so well. They build engagement without making audiences feel they’re being ‘marketed’ to. OOH is regularly voted as the most trustworthy by audiences, which makes it the perfect match.
OOH creates memorable social media moments
TikTok and Instagram are the two platforms making (and breaking) brands in 2025. The visual-heavy nature of both platforms means that brands must create content that is big, unique and bold to cut through the noise. Our most recent collaboration with IKEA for the opening of their flagship store on Oxford Street showed how offline activity can spark an online frenzy. Footage of our black cab with a pile of furniture strapped to the top immediately prompted questions, laughter, discussion, and of course, plenty of reposts. The last time we checked, a video of our cab making its way down Oxford Street has over 3,300 likes on Instagram!
While a pile of IKEA furniture strapped to the top of a black cab helped, the distinctive shape of a black cab already cuts a surprising shape on our roads. It’s a phenomenon known as the Von Restorff effect, explaining how uniquely shaped objects (like taxis!) grab attention and becomes memories in our brains by breaking up our mundane daily routines. Research from Clear Channel and System 1 confirms this, finding that unique OOH special builds like taxis can distinguish a product with 6x times more efficiency (4), delivering additional cut-through in the awareness stage.
There’s no shortage of shareable moments when you trust OOH. Whether that’s digital, traditional, or everything in between, you’re guaranteed impact because it works to the boundaries of your imagination. Naturally, the Ubiquitous team will advocate for taxis – the examples shown above highlight how taxis steal the spotlight. But they can also shine that same light back on the brands that trust them most.