So you're getting ready to promote your business or service with a billboard. And you're dying to ask your media buyer, planner or outdoor sales rep the big question: do billboards work? Unfortunately, there's no easy answer to such a simple question.
Let's start with basic history: the lithograph was invented in 1794 and gave us the ability to print messages on paper. Only governing bodies and royalty had access to the first lithograph posters, so they would publicize any changes in law, post sketches of wanted criminals and invite all the villagers to the gallows for a good ol' fashioned be-heading. Mass promoting through print was officially born. By the 1830's lithograph technology was available to most businesses who had the money to afford it. Circuses traveling throughout the United States were among the first to promote their products and services through posters and outdoor advertising. Somewhere along the line our advertising forefathers came up with the idea of "branding". Which brings us to the present day and a less-simple question: how is outdoor advertising going to survive in an era of unimaginable technology?
Simple.
Since 1794, we still haven't changed how billboards and posters promote our business. A billboard is a billboard is a billboard. Outdoor advertising is easily one of the simplest forms of marketing that exists. The concept of buying "space" and putting a message in that "space" is about as old-school as it gets in this business. And in reality,putting a message in "space" is the cornerstone of what we do.
But in a world so transformed by the internet, social networking, cell-phones, instant messaging and google, we feel like our vehicles for marketing should always be getting faster, easier to use, and adapting. Yet a billboard is still just a big vinyl ad staring back at you on the highway. It always has been and it always will be.
As a media buyer and advertising consultant, I've never told a client to hitch their wagon to outdoor advertising. Let's face it, all the fancy presentations by billboard reps don't change the fact that in most markets 70% of consumers who see your billboard already saw it yesterday on the way to work. And the day before that. Not to mention the fact that they'll see it again on Saturday on their way to Billy's soccer game. The idea of branding tells us that our brand will be burned into the memory of those who see your board so often. Unfortunately, branding has fallen into the shadows of "direct response" over the years and we're more concerned with reaching as many different consumers as possible instead of the same consumers over and over. The days of a giant billboard with the Burma Shave logo on it are long gone. Branding has since been replaced by homebuilders giving us directions on how to get to their community, the local attorney offering uncontested divorce settlements for $200, and McDonald's assuring us that the McRib is only going to around through the end of July (while supplies last). As advertisers we are now asking our audience to respond: turn right ahead, divorce your husband, hurry in for a high-cholesterol sandwich that is shaped like baby back ribs. And that is where we must tread lightly and be very careful. When you begin asking consumers to actually "do something", it had better be simple and brainless. If you have a long URL posted, let's hope its easy to remember because no one is going to get out a pen and write it down at 60 mph. Give them a phone number to remember? Forget it.
We cannot expect something as simple as a billboard to adapt to technology and all the things that make our lives easier. We as advertisers are the ones that need to adapt our messaging to changing times. Wouldn't it be easier to ask a driver to send a quick text and receive updated information on your product than to write down a phone number or address? Or design an eye-catching graphic or image that makes consumers actually remember your product so that they can Google it when they get home?
Unless you're a hotel chain that is simply asking travelers to "Exit Now" for a $39 room, creating a responsive message for a billboard takes creativity as well as logic.
So, do billboards work? Well, that question begs a much bigger question: what are you asking of your audience?
Let's start with basic history: the lithograph was invented in 1794 and gave us the ability to print messages on paper. Only governing bodies and royalty had access to the first lithograph posters, so they would publicize any changes in law, post sketches of wanted criminals and invite all the villagers to the gallows for a good ol' fashioned be-heading. Mass promoting through print was officially born. By the 1830's lithograph technology was available to most businesses who had the money to afford it. Circuses traveling throughout the United States were among the first to promote their products and services through posters and outdoor advertising. Somewhere along the line our advertising forefathers came up with the idea of "branding". Which brings us to the present day and a less-simple question: how is outdoor advertising going to survive in an era of unimaginable technology?
Simple.
Since 1794, we still haven't changed how billboards and posters promote our business. A billboard is a billboard is a billboard. Outdoor advertising is easily one of the simplest forms of marketing that exists. The concept of buying "space" and putting a message in that "space" is about as old-school as it gets in this business. And in reality,putting a message in "space" is the cornerstone of what we do.
But in a world so transformed by the internet, social networking, cell-phones, instant messaging and google, we feel like our vehicles for marketing should always be getting faster, easier to use, and adapting. Yet a billboard is still just a big vinyl ad staring back at you on the highway. It always has been and it always will be.
As a media buyer and advertising consultant, I've never told a client to hitch their wagon to outdoor advertising. Let's face it, all the fancy presentations by billboard reps don't change the fact that in most markets 70% of consumers who see your billboard already saw it yesterday on the way to work. And the day before that. Not to mention the fact that they'll see it again on Saturday on their way to Billy's soccer game. The idea of branding tells us that our brand will be burned into the memory of those who see your board so often. Unfortunately, branding has fallen into the shadows of "direct response" over the years and we're more concerned with reaching as many different consumers as possible instead of the same consumers over and over. The days of a giant billboard with the Burma Shave logo on it are long gone. Branding has since been replaced by homebuilders giving us directions on how to get to their community, the local attorney offering uncontested divorce settlements for $200, and McDonald's assuring us that the McRib is only going to around through the end of July (while supplies last). As advertisers we are now asking our audience to respond: turn right ahead, divorce your husband, hurry in for a high-cholesterol sandwich that is shaped like baby back ribs. And that is where we must tread lightly and be very careful. When you begin asking consumers to actually "do something", it had better be simple and brainless. If you have a long URL posted, let's hope its easy to remember because no one is going to get out a pen and write it down at 60 mph. Give them a phone number to remember? Forget it.
We cannot expect something as simple as a billboard to adapt to technology and all the things that make our lives easier. We as advertisers are the ones that need to adapt our messaging to changing times. Wouldn't it be easier to ask a driver to send a quick text and receive updated information on your product than to write down a phone number or address? Or design an eye-catching graphic or image that makes consumers actually remember your product so that they can Google it when they get home?
Unless you're a hotel chain that is simply asking travelers to "Exit Now" for a $39 room, creating a responsive message for a billboard takes creativity as well as logic.
So, do billboards work? Well, that question begs a much bigger question: what are you asking of your audience?
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