What is FOOH? Fake out-of-home explained for brand teams
FOOH puts your product, larger than life, in real footage of a real street. What it is, why it travels on social, what it costs next to a 3D billboard, and how to brief one.
The definition
FOOH stands for fake out-of-home. It is a film where a CGI object or scene is placed into real footage of a street, a landmark or a building, so it looks like it was there. A handbag the size of a bus on the Champs-Élysées. An oven that turns a facade into a self-cleaning building. It is never on a screen. It exists for the feed.
We also call it mixed reality, because that is what it is: real plates, virtual objects, one believable shot.
Why brands use it
Three reasons.
It travels. A FOOH film is made to be shared. It is short, vertical, surprising, and it does not look like an ad until the product appears.
It goes where screens cannot. A landmark, a rooftop, a river. Anything you can film, you can place a product on.
It is fast. No media buy, no approvals from a media owner, no screen specs. Shoot the plates, build the scene, cut, post.
What it is not
FOOH is not a 3D billboard. A 3D billboard runs on a real screen in a real place, and people film it themselves. FOOH is a film you publish. The two work together: the billboard gives the brand a real moment, the FOOH version extends it to people who were never in the street. We explain the pairing on the FOOH page.
What a good FOOH film needs
A real plate. Footage shot on location, at the right time of day, with the camera moving the way a phone would. The realism comes from the plate, not from the CGI.
One idea. A single object, one action, one surprise. The films that travel are simple.
Light that matches. The CGI must sit in the light of the plate, with reflections, shadows and grain. This is the part that separates a believable film from an obvious one.
A social cut. 9:16, short, with the surprise early. The format is decided at the storyboard stage, not in the edit.
Examples
Our FOOH work covers launches, series and screen extensions: France TV in the streets of Paris, Rhode as a product takeover, Maisons du Monde as a series shot across several cities, and the Miele HydroClean social film that extended a 3D billboard campaign.
What it costs
A FOOH film is priced per film, and a series costs less per film than a one-off, because the assets are reused. When a brand also runs a 3D billboard, the FOOH version is produced from the same 3D assets, which is the most efficient way to get both. Send us the brief and we quote both options.
How to brief one
Tell us the product, the city, the moment you want and where the film will be posted. We come back with a storyboard, then the film in 3 to 4 weeks from the approved brief, two rounds of changes included.
If you want to see what your brand could look like in a real street before committing, ask for a free concept.