![]()
The Great Outdoors
Outdoor Advertising Could Bring More Customers Into Your Business
By Mark Landsbaum
Although the Internet seems to overshadow all forms of marketing communication,
conventional options still exist for reaching customers.
Even ubiquitous
Google, which long shunned advertising, now concedes the Internet alone is
insufficient. Last year Google began promoting its search engine with outdoor
advertising in Russia, where it faced stiff rivalry from domestic competitors,
and on buses and trains in San Francisco and Chicago, where it’s already
well-established.
If billboards and poster panels are good for the
hugely successful Internet-based Google, can outdoor advertising be good for
your micro-business? Perhaps.
The Inside Scoop
Outdoor
advertising, also known as out-of-home advertising, is divided into billboards,
street furniture, transit and alternative media.
Billboards date to the
1830s in the U.S., but government restrictions on their numbers and placement
have driven up costs by reducing supply in the face of growing demand.
Nevertheless, conventional billboard advertising accounts for two-thirds of the
outdoor industry’s $6.8 billion annual revenue.
Variations on the theme
include sidewalk kiosks and even the latter-day version of sandwich boards,
called human directionals, which typically feature a person on a street corner
literally pointing the way to a storefront by waving a large portable sign.
Street furniture includes ads carried on bus and train benches and
shelters, and even in-store displays, as well as public telephone, rail and
shopping center displays. Transit displays include vinyl wraps that can
encompass an entire bus and items as small as a taxi-top ad.
The
alternative media category is essentially everything else, limited only by
imagination.
Options include skywriting, wall ads on minor league
ballpark fences, small poster displays in bars and restrooms, and stickers on
barrier poles. There are ads on blimps and other inflatables. Smaller displays
can be mounted on vending machines, turnstiles and trash receptacles (although
you may want to think twice before associating your product with that last
option).
The variety of outdoor advertising today is vast and
ever-expanding as new hi-tech solutions are applied.
Increasingly,
digital delivery is enlivening previously static kiosks and even conventional
wall-mounted messages, luring prospective customers with creative interactive
elements. Qkey Holdings, for example, has developed a digital marketing platform
that enables consumers to interact with all types of media including billboards
via a mobile phone, allowing downloading of data to the phone or to an e-mail
address.
As technology makes it easier for consumers to avoid in-home
advertising — think TiVo, do-not-call lists and spam filters — advertisers are
going to places where eyes aren’t as easily averted, public places like malls,
thoroughfares and workplaces. Outdoor advertising, including large flat-screen,
TV-type displays, is becoming so widespread that messages are thrust upon people
waiting for a haircut, buying groceries and pumping gasoline.
The Big
Attraction
What works for your business will depend on your
customers’ preferences and on what you can afford. Out-of-home advertising can
be cost-effective, but it’s not a perfect fit for everyone, and probably never
should consume all your advertising dollars. But if it broadens or deepens your
reach and returns more than it costs, it can be worthwhile.
It’s
noteworthy that the industry estimates seven out of 10 outdoor ads promote local
businesses, and even a greater percentage in nonurban areas. Travel and tourism
industries are the top buyers.
Outdoor advertising’s big attraction is
the potentially huge audience it may deliver.
The downside is you may
never know how many eyeballs were drawn to your message, or whether your
advertising campaign resulted in any sales. Tracking sales in relation to visual
exposures is nowhere as precise as counting Web page clicks. And it’s at least
as difficult as tracking other conventional advertising, but without even the
benefit of crude tools like counting clipped coupons from print ads.
On
the other hand, the Outdoor Advertising Association of America says that the
advent of digital displays updated in real time means micro-businesses can
“adapt quickly in fast-changing, competitive environments,” such as offering
constantly changing prices or announcing time-sensitive sales, as well an
ability to target markets by time of day and location.
New, but so far
sparsely applied, technology also permits billboards and other digital displays
to count how many people come within eyeshot. Even more advanced versions claim
to use tiny cameras to gather demographic details of passersby then analyze
their facial features with software to determine sex and age. Soon you may be
able to know whether middle-aged women or young men saw your ad.
The
Pros And Cons
Before weighing advantages and disadvantages,
determine whether outdoor advertising is a good fit for your micro-business.
First be mindful of your customers. What are the habits and preferences
of your target market? What benefits do they seek that you provide?
If
you sell wheelchairs to senior citizens, don’t waste money with wall posters at
the roller rink. Placards touting automotive accessories probably won’t interest
subway commuters.
But if your market profile (you do have one, right?)
shows that your typical customer spends two hours daily on the highway, it may
be worthwhile to buy billboard space. Similarly, if your customer profile
matches the profile of frequent shopping mall visitors, investing in interactive
digital kiosks can work, too.
Outdoor advertising’s advantage over
direct mail is the savings on printing and shipping. Digital delivery also
enables advertisers to share the same space, buying only a portion of display
time, as opposed to paying for the entire display in a magazine or newspaper ad.
But disadvantages include a perception that your outdoor ad contributes
to visual clutter, which can offset a lot of good will with a single glance. The
reason municipalities restrict outdoor displays is because of adverse public
reactions. When the idea is to build brand awareness, you may want to weigh the
risk of being associated with visual blight.
How much of your ad dollar
should go to outdoor advertising? Since budgets are limited, sample before
committing.
Ultimately, how much you spend on direct mail, Internet ads,
newspaper inserts or park bench displays depends on how much each contributes to
success.
Because it’s more difficult than with other forms of
advertising to directly link an upturn (or downturn) in sales to an outdoor
campaign, it’s prudent to change no other aspects of your ad or marketing mix
while doing a test sample. If you change two variables at the same time, you
can’t be certain which caused the change in sales.
Here’s an
indispensable marketing tip: Don’t abandon what is working for something that
has yet to prove it works.
The Costs
Generally, outdoor
advertising is competitive with other major ad options, but prices vary
tremendously by region, season and type of media.
- The Outdoor Advertising Association of America (OAAA) says billboard
advertising costs 86 percent less than TV commercials, 66 percent less than
newspapers and 44 percent less than radio.
- Media Life Magazine reports that wallscapes in Times Square may run $12,000
a day, but only $400 a month in the Midwest for a prime location.
- Del Outdoor Advertising serving Yuma, Ariz., quotes a $225 monthly rental
price for a 6-by-12 foot single billboard.
- Florida-based Billboard Connection prices 14 movie theater screen
advertisements at $350 a week for a four-week contract, with a $700 one-time
graphical production fee.
The price you pay isn’t as important as the
return on your investment. A cheap ad that generates no sales is money wasted. A
costly ad that puts heaps of dollars in the till is worth the expense.
And it is wise to deal with reputable companies and agencies to
calculate the return on your investment.
The questions you want to ask
include who will see your ad, how many times will it be seen and is there a way
to measure the ad’s effectiveness. Different providers and different media will
have different answers and measuring yardsticks. If the best they can do is to
point you to your own sales numbers, be sure to sample first and sample only one
change in your advertising at a time.
For self-help, get OAAA’s
“Planning For Out of Home Media,” a 200-page planning guide available for $18.
Order it online at
www.oaaa.org. Click “Online Store,” then “Sales and
Reference.”