Billboards Continue to Perplex Marketers

I’m sorry Boone Community School District. You are really good at educating school kids with iPads, but your billboard design needs help.

This is just another in a long list of billboards that you just can’t read driving any faster than 0 miles per hour: Too many words, small type, too many messages, complicated visuals and poor contrast. This billboard would have made a great newspaper ad. Yes, you can see it when you freeze it (and it was frozen—you can see the snow) and study it on a screen. It might look good printed and displayed on a bulletin board, but driving by at 45 mph, it has no stickiness.

Just look at how McDonald’s uses the billboard medium and you’ll see why this execution was meant for a flyer or rack card. This would get an “incomplete” in my billboard grading system.

(Thanks to Justin for serving as my marketing picket and sending the photo.)

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Are You Selling Suits or Faces?

On so many billboards today, I’m noticing a trend toward smaller and smaller faces. It’s not a huge problem such as global warming, but it is a trend of making the medium irrelevant and advertising ineffective. 

The problem with a small face, is that the body shot now will be much larger. You will be selling suits or dresses or shirts and not the real reason you put the person on the billboard in the first place–their faces.  Billboards must be able to communicate in seconds. That means the face must be as large as possible.

Take a look at my example of Bob Peters running for office.  In one billboard, you almost can tell his brand of suit.  In the tighter crop, you can make eye contact. In the first example, his face is only makes up approximately 25% of the space allowed for the graphic.  In the second example, the face makes up nearly 100% of the allowable space.  That is impact.

When I’ve talked to people about tighter crops, the reaction is usually, “That makes me uncomfortable.”  And that is one of the goals of advertising: be a little on edge so you attract attention, get noticed, don’t bore people and stand out.

Medium is boring. It may be just right for porridge, but it makes most photography uninteresting. If you are too afraid to be bold, you may not want to be marketing at all. Get in close. Take a stand and stand out. That is where the (communication and marketing) action is.

 

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Out-of-Home Advertising May Be the Next Big Thing

Billboards and signs have always been big. But now, billboards may combine with smartphones to become incredibly powerful marketing tools.

Clear Channel Outdoor has rolled out a mobile, interactive ad platform called Connect. Outdoor sites will soon offer mobile engagement such as near-field communications and QR codes, turning pedestrian-accessible sites into “launch pads for interactive content.”

Digital billboards are just getting started. Digital is full of promise, although few are using the medium for its ability to change content daily and in specific locations. So far, all digital billboards do is change every seven seconds. There is so much more to come.

There is potential for sophisticated couponing, augmented reality and digital imaging. Out-of-home signage can be potentially one of the most powerful call-to-action media. Signs with smartphones may become the entry portal to brand engagement.

Out-of-home, an often overlooked medium, is now becoming one with the greatest potential to engage new media.

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Counting Sign Keeps You Engaged

Note: A glitch in our new email system has made this blog rerun necessary.  Sorry for the inconvenience.

We notice movement and change.  Banners, signs, notifications and billboards that don’t change blend into the background to never be seen again.  It’s one reason grocery stores move products around on shelves. 

The state of Iowa has notification boards that span the Interstate highway system.  These have a chance of being ignored, but a new sign keeps you highly engaged.  It is a simple concept, although a little morbid, that reminds you to be careful on the road.  The sign counts up the number of deaths on Iowa’s highways.  It’s the counting up that intrigues and sends a strong message to drivers.

The state had nearly 400 deaths last year.  It was a little disconcerting to see the number at “1” to begin the year.  The counting and constant change keeps you engaged and constantly looking at the signs.  It’s a great communication technique that draws you in and hopefully keeps you a little safer.

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Bad Billboards

There are so many bad billboards.

The two main problems? 1) Small type and 2) Too many words. These two issues make most billboards powerless. Yet there is one problem that many marketers fail to consider, and that is the environment around the billboard.

You can plan all you want, but the problem with billboards of any kind is that you are usually moving when you see them, so they need to be abundantly clear in graphics and message.  But there also needs to be clear line of sight.

Here are two examples of poor visibility.   Bad.

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Do Billboards Work?

I’ve written a lot about billboards and the many inherent problems with the medium.  Most of them center around too thin of fonts, too much copy, and no reasonable goal for the medium.  My favorite billboard is “Next Exit,” a big arrow and a strong logo like a golden arch.  If you need a clean bathroom and a cold drink, nothing sells better.

I’ve now seen a new one: Bennett Olson,  a 22-year-old from Minneapolis found a job using a billboard according to MSNBC.com.  Olson paid less than $500 for his 15-seconds of fame near downtown Minneapolis.  His ad featured his face, a strong call to action and a website.  He now has a job with a 3-D scanning company.

What can we learn?

• You can be successful with any medium as long as you follow the rules of that medium.
• Sometimes the PR for what you are doing is bigger than the individual ad you purchased.  He even had coverage on MSNBC.
• A two-word headline and a three-word URL  is inspired sales writing.

Great job.  And now he has a job.  He has a 100% ROI with his media.  We could all takes some lessons from this young marketer.

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Billboards Are Not Just on Roads

Billboards are not just on roads.  Most billboards are actually in buildings.  They are the myriad signs tacked on walls with important information.  They are the backlit signs that give direction and information. Imagine if the person who is in charge of Exit signs used the same thinking most use for all the signs dotting our offices, public buildings and stores.  They might say, “Please comprehensively move your body this way and then depart from the building.  Have a nice day.”  Or, you could just say “Exit.”    As a friend of mine says, if a committee designed a stop sign, it would say, “Decrease speed to the maximum capacity.”   I prefer “Stop.” 

So what is it with signs—inside and outside of buildings?  The rule is simple:  9 words or fewer.  Take a look at this sign that is the Ohare airport.  While I waited for my delayed plane, I observed hundreds of people pass by this sign and not look at it.  I saw two people glance at it, but not long enough to read more than 9 words.  Even the woman who rested by the sign didn’t read it.

The problem?  Too many words (more than 60), a lackluster graphic and no surprise.  There was no reason to look at it.  I’m sure it looked wonderful on the screen of a computer.  I’m sure everyone thought the printout was fantastic as they looked at it in an office.  But in the field, with a million other things to look at, it didn’t communicate.  Today, the photo better knock someone off their feet.  It better get really close and show people something they have not seen before.  And the headline better be “a head” line—not a lineup of heads.  You have a few seconds.  Use them wisely.

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Time is a Real Benefit

Hospitals all across the country are touting ER wait times.  We are all busy people and time seems to have become a new currency for most, but is this a real trend or just this year’s fancy?

While I was traveling in the Palm Beach, Fla. area, I spotted a lot of emergency department ads talking about wait times.  This one that I snapped a photo of was an electronic sign that posted the time, although I never did see the time change on different trips by the board.  This trend may not last, but the trend of saving people time seems here to stay.

Time is becoming more of a value.  Of course, with this economy, we all need to find ways to save people money, but we should also be focused on saving time as well.  We have a saying in our design department that “speed thrills.”  You are always impressed when you receive something prior to when you were expecting it.   That also means we need to manage expectations for product and service delivery.

Faster is better.  But it must be more than an advertising theme.   Speed thrills.  Late kills.

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Signs of the Times

Is it time for us to rethink signs?  GPS, Google maps, Bing maps, smart phones and other locational apps all seem to be making signs less relevant.

Actually, what signs may need to do in the future (other than talk to you on your own channel or beam messaging to your car/phone/watch) is sell more.  It is time to repurpose the sign.  The sign should not only answer the question of where, but why.

One of my favorite signs was a hand-written sign outside a shack near Flomaton, Alabama.  It read, “Miss Pearl’s Bar-B-Q.  Miss Pearl makes it so good.”  I had seen a bunch of barbecue places on our drive through Alabama.  I did stop at “Whole-butt Bar-b-q” in Greenville, Alabama, just for the name.  But something about the selling line made me stop for another sandwich.  If Miss Pearl makes it good, then I have to try it.  Her sign not only gave me the where, but the why.  And she (yes, Miss Pearl was inside) made it so, so good.  Miss Pearl’s is closed now, I’m sure the health department did one inspection and shut it down fast.  But Miss Pearl was one good marketer, in front of the times.

Our sign helps let you know the where (this is ME&V), but also that this is a creative place to stop where we help differentiate brands and deliver electrifying creativity.  Compare it to other agency signs and you see the immediate difference.  Signs will need to less and less provide the where, but they will still need to sell the why.

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Do You Think I’m a Creeper?

My daughter called me a “creeper” for standing outside a store for young women in New York City.  But I couldn’t help myself, their marketing was so involving.

Last fall, I was in New York City speaking to a group about marketing and branding.  To help kill an afternoon, Jim Infelt (one of the partners at ME&V) and I decided to take in a few sights.  I always make sure I visit Times Square.  1.6 million people walk by, so the advertising potential is rather large.  However, the clutter is unbelievable.  It’s pretty, but from a marketer’s point of view, it is a problem to stand out.

Forever 21 is a young women’s clothing store.  Just like all the other stores on Times Square, it has an electronic sign.  The difference in the Forever 21 sign is that people stop and look at this sign.  It is captivating.

What is so special about the video display?  You are in it.  They have a large TV screen with a camera facing the sidewalk on Times Square.  It takes you a little bit to realize that is you waving back at you.  It’s a simple idea, but they are the only one doing it.  They used some ‘chroma-key, green-screen technology’ to have a few models come out on the screen and look like they are taking a photo of you while you stand there waving at the sign.   Later, they play a video to show how it is all done.  Amazing.

The technique stopped many of the 1.6 million walking by and made them take notice.  If I had been the correct demo, and not a creeper, it would have been a marketing moment miracle.

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