FINDING NEW BILLBOARD LOCATIONS IN A SATURATED MARKET

In today's topic Frank Rolfe says it all with his priceless advice. Rolfe, the author of Billboard Home Study Course started his billboard empire from his coffee table, as a fresh graduate from Stanford University. In this article, he opens up in trying to help small Out Of Home Companies survive. Read on...

CREATING WINNING BILLBOARD ARTWORK

In today's write-up, Frank Rolfe, the author of Billboard Home Study Course says it all. Billboard creative artwork can sell or embarrassed a brand. Following simple rules will not only turn out to a memorable ad but will also connect well with the right target audience with right ROI. Happy reading... Advertising Research Resource.

Great billboard artwork is a combination of simple concepts steeped in decades of research. As long as you follow these basic, time-proven steps, you will always deliver your client a billboard that is attractive and effective. And if you fail to utilize this information, brought to you by billboard company research beginning in the 1920s, your client’s billboard may be illegible and ineffective.

Keep It Simple
You should not put more than a few words on a billboard. Why? Two reasons. First, you can’t grasp more than a few words while reading and driving at 55 mph. Secondly, the size of the words is very important – you want to keep the main copy at approximately 36” character height – so the fewer the words, the larger the type and the better the visibility. To make this happen, you have to distill the advertiser’s message down to its simplest form. This is one of your key goals in creating great artwork – what is the key message and how can you express it in the fewest possible words?

Legible Typestyles
There are a lot of typestyles out there – and most of them should never be used on a billboard. The typestyles you use must be easy to read. Those include simple styles such as times roman and universe. Always use styles that have very bold, thick strokes – they are easier to read at far distances. Most of the highly stylized typestyles that are popular in print advertising are completely inappropriate in billboards, although many graphic designers refuse to acknowledge this. If the viewer can’t read your copy, what it the point of the billboard?

High Contrast
The Outdoor Advertising Association of America in 1928, published their findings of exhaustive research into what color combinations are the most legible on a billboard. The best colors, in order of success, more maximum contrast are

1)black on yellow
2)black on white
3)yellow on black
4)white on black
5)blue on white
6)white on blue
7)white on green
8) green on white
9)red on white
10)white on red.

When the words and background on a billboard have little contrast, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to read the message. And it you cannot read the message, the ad is a total waste.

Graphic Must Convey
If you are going to put a picture in the ad (and you probably should) make sure that it compliments and helps tell the story. For example, a restaurant might want to show a plate of appetizing food as the graphic – not a leprechaun looking at a four leaf clover. The graphic should help sell the product or service, and make the ad memorable enough that you can remember the name of the company.

Test and Re-test
Once you have a design that meets these criteria, you have to test it on some sample consumers to see if it works. These may be, in the simplest form, some of your co-workers. Tape the finished artwork to a distant wall, and then have the guinea pig walk toward the wall and tell you when they can see it clearly and what it means (try as best as you can to replicate the distance and size that the billboard will be seen). Be sure to use color artwork, so you don’t cheat with the simple, high-contrast black and white version. A winning piece of art will have good visibility at a distance so far that most of the copy is illegible – yet just the headline grabs the viewer’s attention and makes them want to read the balance of the ad.

Conclusion
There is no magic to producing great billboard ad copy. In fact, when you get away from the simple, time-proven roots of great copy is when you fail in your mission. You may be tempted to stray from these logical benchmarks to create “breakthrough” advertising – but instead all you will create is an embarrassment. Due to the difficulty in reading an ad at 55 mph from 1,000’, a lot of the creative things that work in print ads just don’t apply here.

So if you want to be known for having happy customers with ads that really sell, you need to stick to the points outlined above.

The Advantages and Disadvantages of Social Media

By MaryEllen Tribby

The first and most notable advantage of social media advertising is its low cost.

The Good . . .
Once your website is built and running, it costs very little to get your customers and prospects to go to it. They will do it on their own almost every time you put an advertisement in front of them, and every time they consider buying one of your products. If you have established e-mail contact with your customers, stimulating them to use your social media site (such as blogs and forums) costs you nothing more than the expense of composing the message. Expensive list or space fees do not apply.

The next thing that should be said about social media is its wide reach. When a social message catches fire, it can travel around the world to millions of people in a matter of weeks or even days. The main reason for this is the Internet. But other media are often involved, too. It is not unusual for a hot Internet message or video to be picked up by radio, television, magazines, or newspapers. Sometimes, all of these media jump on the subject at one time.

Social media is also a superb way to gather information about your customers, their wants and desires, and to deal with any business problems you may be encountering.

Social media advertising is the most effective way to establish, defend, and boost your company's credibility.

Social marketing has many potential benefits. But there are draw-backs too. Of all the advertising channels, social marketing is the one that offers the longest odds.

The Bad . . .
The reason social marketing can be difficult is because of the channel itself. It is big and it is powerful, but it is not controllable by the marketer. In some cases, it can backfire by turning into negative publicity.

This is especially true if you try to use social media dishonestly. If you misrepresent yourself online, you will most likely get caught and suffer the consequences. The online world will quickly turn against you with a wave of very bad buzz across cyberspace. This will result in lost sales, public outrage, and more.

So how do you use social media dishonestly? Shady marketers have created fake profiles of "fans" on social networking sites like MySpace in order to promote their products. They've also created "consumer" blogs that were written by their company's PR department.

And The Ugly . . .
In one widely publicized recent case, Whole Foods' CEO John Mackey was caught posting negative comments about a competitor on Yahoo Finance message boards. He used a pseudonym during the entire eight-year run of trash talk. Many believe his goal was to drive down the stock price of the competitor so that Whole Foods could easily take it over. That allegation was enough to get the SEC involved.

In another case, Wal-Mart's PR firm hired two journalists to travel across the United States in an RV, visiting stores along the way. Posing as ordinary people, the reporters collected overwhelmingly pro Wal-Mart interviews with employees and customers and posted them on their blog. Around the same time, the same PR firm created a fake grassroots campaign in which a mom, part of a working-class family, sang the praises of the retail giant. Savvy Internet surfers soon realized the "bloggers" in both cases were hired guns, and spread the news online.

Honesty is a key asset with social media, not only because of the consequences if you get caught "faking it," but because of the creative strengths you enjoy when you figure out how to promote the core values and qualities of your company and products through this channel.

These are the main principles that apply to social media advertising:

* The Message Is for the Medium. When creating an event, writing a press release, or crafting a video for viral marketing, think about what people are interested in, not what you want to show them. Nobody in the major social media is likely to be interested in a new product you create or a new development in your company. But if you can reposition your news so that it will be interesting to the greater public, you have a good chance of getting coverage. The trick to writing good press releases and/or informational videos is to study the media beforehand. Figure out what types of stories/videos they like to run, and tailor your piece to match.

* Audacity Is Everything. When developing a news story or event, be aggressive in your conception. Big stories are generally better than small ones. Crazy events are more interesting than sane ones. Odd or funny videos get more play than conventional ones. But when thinking audaciously, be calculating. Study the media's preferences. Determine what kind of odd, crazy, and/or funny messages they like to feature.

* Respect the Priorities. Records are more interesting than lists. Lists are more interesting than facts. Social media loves world records, even world records for obscure and silly things. Next to world records, social media loves lists, especially top-10 lists: forecasts, trends, favorite picks, and so on. The best movies of the year, the best albums of the year, the best electronic gadgets, and the best travel destinations are examples of lists that are popular in social media. People have strong opinions about these subjects, and such lists can generate a lot of discussion among those who disagree with the ratings. Think of how your business can generate your own world records and top-10 lists.

* Give Them Something to Talk About. Everyone likes a scandal and controversy. If you can figure out how to sex up your message, try it.

* Simplicity Is a Virtue. When announcing your news, express it in the simplest possible language. Simple language gives you two big advantages. First, it is easier to comprehend. Second, it is easier for people to remember and repeat, like a catchy sound bite that you may hear on TV. Think of how quickly catchphrases from the sitcom Seinfeld ("yada, yada, yada," or "no soup for you") passed into everyday usage.

*Make It Brief. The core concept of the message--the part you want people to remember--should be short enough to print on the subject line of an e-mail or in the headline of a magazine article.

If you are interested in expanding your company's reach, try incorporating social media into your multi-channel marketing campaigns.

Social Media - changing paradigim in advertisers' choice

The Internet is the biggest psychological and social human
experience... We make encouraging viral activity.
~Cynthia Gordon


Social Media

Everyone talks about the ease of Social Media. But if you are not doing it effectively you are just wasting your time.

So, in our next couple of bloggs, we are going to look at some of these issues with Mary Ellen Tribby, an expert in social and internet marketing.

However, before then, what is SOCIAL MEDIA?

According to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, Social media are media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. It takes advertange(s) of internet interaction that is growing at a very fast pace across the globe including developing countries.

In mature markets, Social Media has gained wide acceptance especially among the youth which makes it an ideal platform for a serious advertiser to show case its brands.

It uses web-based technologies to transform and broadcast media monologues into social media dialogues. They support the democratization of knowledge and information and transform people from content consumers to content producers. Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein define social media as "a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web, and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content.

Businesses also refer to social media as user-generated content (UGC) or consumer-generated media (CGM). Social media utilization is believed to be a driving force in defining the current period as the Attention Age.

What's more, according to Wikipedia, Social media have been modernized to reach consumers through the internet. This makes it more appealing to big and small businesses. Advertisers across the globe are utilizing social media to reach customers, create relationship with them and to build or maintain reputation.

The growth of social media across the globe is monumental. As it continues to grow, the ability to reach more consumers globally has also increased. More Social Media are springing up or being created everyday and reaching out globally given opportunities to advertisers to reach consumers in every corner of the world using their respective languages.

Popular networking sites including Myspace, Facebook and Twitter. These are social media most commonly used for socialization and connecting friends, relatives, and employees.

According to Wikipedia, there are various statistics out now that account for social media usage and effectiveness for individuals worldwide. However, some of the most recent statistics are as follows:

 Social networking now accounts for 11 percent of all time spent online in
the US.

 A total of 234 million people age 13 and older in the U.S. used mobile
devices in December 2009.

 Twitter processed more than one billion tweets in December 2009 and averages
almost 40 million tweets per day.

 Over 25% of U.S. internet page views occurred at one of the top social
networking sites in December 2009, up from 13.8% a year before.



Advertising Research Resource

History of Outdoor advertising

Introduction

Outdoor advertising can trace its lineage back to the earliest civilizations. Thousands of years ago, the Egyptians employed a tall stone obelisk to publicize laws and treaties. While formats have certainly changed and as advertising ideas have evolved, outdoor is still here.

Early Stages

In 1450, Johannes Gutenberg invented movable type printing, and advertising in the modern sense was launched in the form of the handbill.

When the lithographic process was perfected in 1796, the illustrated poster became a reality.

Gradually, measures were taken to ensure exposure of a message for a fixed period of time. In order to offer more desirable locations where traffic was heavy, bill posters began to erect their own structures.

U.S. Billboard Origins In 1830’s
The large American outdoor poster (more than 50 square feet) originated in New York in Jared Bell’s office where he printed posters for the circus in 1835.

In the beginning, American roadside advertising was generally local. Merchants painted signs or glued posters on walls and fences to notify the passersby that their establishments up the road sold horse blankets, rheumatism pills, etc.

In 1850, exterior advertising was first used on street railways.

First Association in the 1870’s
The earliest recorded leasings of boards occurred in the U.S. in 1867.

By 1870 close to 300 small sign-painting and bill posting companies existed.

In 1872, the International Bill Posters’ Association of North America was formed in St. Louis.

National Association in the 1890’s
In 1891 the Associated Bill Posters’ Association of the US and Canada was formed in Chicago. The name was later changed to the Outdoor Advertising Association of America. Their purpose:

• To promote a greater understanding of the poster medium.
• To provide an expanded nationwide organization for coordinating the services offered by member companies.
• To continue to address the ethical concerns of early industry leaders.
  Michigan formed the first state bill posters association in 1871, followed by Indiana, New York, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin, all of which had active state associations by 1891.

Standardization in 1900
In 1900, a standardized billboard structure was created in America, and ushered in a boom in national billboard campaigns. Confident that the same ad would fit billboards from Connecticut to Kansas, big advertisers like Palmolive, Kellogg, and Coca-Cola began mass-producing billboards for the national market.

By 1912, standardized outdoor service was at the disposal of national advertisers in nearly every major urban center.

In 1913, the Association established an education committee which served to encourage the industry to donate public service advertising. The practice of filling "open boards" with public service messages has continued to this day. During periods of war, the industry has responded by taking upon itself a shared responsibility for mobilization. In peacetime, the concern has been for those causes that could generally improve society.

The National Outdoor Advertising Bureau (NOAB) was formed in 1915 to serve the outdoor advertising needs advertising agencies had with their various clients and to regularly inspect the showings in the field.

In 1931 Outdoor Advertising, Inc. (OAI) was formed to sell the concept of outdoor advertising (later merged into OAAA).

Name Change to OAAA in 1925
In 1925 the Poster Advertising Association and the Painted Outdoor Advertising Association joined to become the Outdoor Advertising Association of America (OAAA) combining the interests of posters and bulletins into one association.

In the mid-twenties, the outdoor advertising industry was at last generally accepted by the banking community. New York’s Outdoor Advertising Company was listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

In 1925 the first major merger of outdoor advertising firms took place. The Fulton Group and the Cusack Co. combined to become the General Outdoor Advertising Company (GOA).
In February 1934, the industry established the Traffic Audit Bureau (TAB) to provide advertisers with data to determine outdoor audience size.

In 1958, Congress passed the first federal legislation to voluntarily control billboards along Interstate highways. The law was known as the Bonus Act because states were given bonus incentives to control signs.

In 1962, French outdoor company JCDecaux invented the bus stop shelter. A popular outdoor venue, shelters are built at no cost to municipalities and rely on ad revenue for their upkeep.
On October 22, 1965 the Highway Beautification Act was signed into law by President Johnson. It controlled billboards on Interstate and federal-aid primary highways by limiting billboards to commercial and industrial areas, and by requiring states to set size, lighting and spacing standards and requiring just compensation for removal of lawfully erected signs.

In 1972, tobacco advertising was banned on broadcast media – leaving print and outdoor as its most popular venues.

In 1975, the Institute of Outdoor Advertising (IOA – later the OAAA) developed a campaign to measure billboards’ effectiveness. The concept featured Shirley Cochran, the newly crowned Miss America, on billboards that were displayed across the country. Her name recognition soared 940% after the campaign.

Also in the 1970’s a group of billboard companies commissioned studies at MIT in the painting of bulletins by computer. This ultimately led to computer painting on vinyl which was advanced by Metromedia Technologies and Computer Image Systems.

In 1983, the industry took the San Diego anti-billboard ordinance all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The court held the ordinance to be unconstitutional.

1990's to the Present
Digital technology transformed the industry--hand-painted boards are replaced by computer-painted outdoor advertising formats. Outdoor companies offer an increasingly diverse selection of advertising formats including: bus shelters, transit and kiosks; airport advertising, mall displays and taxis.

In 1990, the State of California used outdoor for its state-wide anti-smoking campaign. OAAA limits placement of messages for products and services that cannot be sold to minors.

In 1991, OAAA celebrates its Centennial Convention in Washington, D.C.

In 1999, tobacco advertising is no longer allowed on outdoor.

In 2001, the OAAA National Convention scheduled for September 11-13 in New York was cancelled due to the events of September 11. This marked the first time an OAAA convention had ever been cancelled.

In 2002, Arbitron and Nielsen began testing the feasibility of developing outdoor ratings.
In 2003, the OAAA and the TAB joined together to host the first combined National Convention.

The event also included the 61st annual OBIE Awards presentation.

Source: Outdoor Advertising Association of America, Inc.

OUTDOOR ADVERTISING

Why should you/your client use Billboards?

Billboard business is all about location, because a billboard with a good location (on an Interstate or major highway) can have more viewers than the super eagles. Another great benefit of outdoor advertising is that it does not interrupt consumers in any way. There's no obnoxious sound, smell or other type of negative attention grabber. Billboards get noticed because of their messages, bright bold colors and creative graphics. Small businesses benefit the most from billboard advertising. Billboards are becoming more and more popular today. Perhaps it's because they reach more people for cheaper prices than any other type of media. Or perhaps it's because people are spending much more time in their vehicles now than ever before. Since billboard advertising is increasing so much, I think it is very important for all business owners and everyone involved in advertising to know the basics of billboards.

Rather than restricts ourselves to discussion on billboards only, in the next few weeks, Advertising Research Resource will be taken a total outlook on OUTDOOR ADVERTISING in general.

During this period, a lots of comments are expected from the gurus in the outdoor advertising industry to help sharpens our knowledge and how to get the most out of the medium.

Therefore, the series in outdoor advertising on this forum will properly take off next week where we will examine the origin of outdoor advertising in the world.

Before then however, let us have some flavour and a taste of what to expect. Happy reading!

Information about Billboards in Nigeria.

• Outdoor advertising is the oldest and most basic type of advertising.
• More people can view one particular billboard than AIT Television Station. The fact remains that the billboard must be located in a high traffic area.
• Billboards are viewed nearly 24 hours a day, 7 days a week by billions of different people.
• OAAA did a study in 1999 that says people glance at 70% of the billboards they pass. Of these billboards, 63% are actually read. Most other types of media can not compare to this. And that is the fact.

Important things you should consider before placing your Billboard Ads.

If your product is a premium brand, and you have a specific targeted market; you should consider placing your billboards ads in places like; Lagos, Port-Harcourt and Abuja. A place can be very populated like Oyo state and very few people will be able to afford your product. That is because majority of the people there are low income earners. That does not mean that there will not be some people who will be able to afford your product, it only means you must be very tactical about the way you go about your campaign in such places.

If your focus is in Lagos, Nigeria for example, then you should concentrate effort in places like Aja, Lekki, Victoria Island, Ikoyi, Ikeja, Magodo, Festac, some areas in Mafoluku Oshodi and a few other places where people that can afford your product stays.

If your product is for the low income earners like affordable toilet soap, you should concentrate more effort in places in Lagos like Ajegunle, Oshodi, Egbeda, Idimu, Ikotun, Agege, Ogba and some other few places.

Your brand will be more appreciated in these areas rather than just placing your billboard anywhere.

Reach

• Billboards in Lagos reaches 80% of all Lagos population,
• Television commercials (which ranks #1) reaches 85% of all Lagos population.

Other type of Media

• The average person must see a television commercial at least seven times before they actually remember viewing the commercial. When one thinks about how much this will cost, one would realize that its true that:
• Outdoor Advertising costs 80% less than television advertising, 60% less than newspaper ads, and 50% less than radio advertisements.

Billboard Facts

1. Repetition is extremely helpful when you are trying to increase your product awareness, or when you simply want to get your message across to millions of people. This task can easily be accomplished with billboard campaigns.
2. Outdoor advertising makes it extremely easy to target, or not to target, a specific market.
3. Billboards are usually the final message we see right before we purchase an item. So why not direct everyone to your product?

Driving Trends

• People are spending more time in their vehicle than they do to read the paper and watch the news! For example, the traffic in Lagos, Nigeria makes it possible for you to spend about six (6) hours on the road to work and back. For those that live on the mainland and work on the island will understand perfectly what I am writing about.
• OAAA did a study in 1999 that says people glance at 70% of the billboards they pass. Of these billboards, 63% are actually read.
• How do billboard rates compare to other types of advertising?
• Outdoor advertising has a lower cost per thousand (CPM) than any other type of advertising. Outdoor ads cost 80% less than television commercials, 60% less than newspaper ads, and 50% less than radio ads.
• Billboards have been rated higher than any other type of advertising for their ability to communicate ideas at the lowest possible prices.
• Outdoor advertising has a larger audience than any other type of advertising. Outdoor advertising is the only type of media that has constant exposure. No other type of advertising allows your message to be displayed 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
• Ads on billboards are free to consumers; you do not have to buy a magazine, cable television, or a newspaper to see your advertisement.

Materials placed on billboards space. (Vinyls)

When you pay for a billboard space, you are told the money is for ‘Picture Area only (PAO)’, which means, the money does not include the printing for the material placed on the billboard. Vinyls are the materials pasted on billboards. A majority of the billboards with beautiful and complicated graphics have vinyls on them. These vinyls are printed on a wide format printer. Most vinyls are protected with a special Ultra-Violet coating that allows the vinyls to last for years.

SAV Vinyls- These vinyls have sticky backsides. Since SAV vinyls have sticky backgrounds, they cannot be moved.

Flex Vinyls- are the most common type of vinyl. These vinyls do not have sticky backs like adhesive vinyls, instead they are "hung" on the edges of the boards. Flex vinyls can be easily be moved to several different locations.

Backlit- This material is very similar to flex, except that it is like a mesh. It has the ability to reflect light that are placed at the back of the material. They are the one you usually see reflecting so much light from inside the billboard at night. They are usually a little more expensive than ordinary flex.


NB: Story culled for the forum users