The three second ad?
Welcome to another of my teachings on creative marketing. This month I want to focus on getting the attention of folks behind the wheel using billboards. Have you noticed the competition for your attention while driving into Bragg Creek from the north on Highway 22? Or as you race west along the Trans-Canada and the ad says to stop and have a Spaaaaah in Banff?
Well, it’s no surprise that local businesses are competing for tourist/visitor dollars from both sides of the road. And what better way to make new customers than to have them think of your brand as they’re driving into your neighbourhood.
In our profession, billboard/outdoor advertising is called Out-Of-Home (OOH) advertising. OOH mediums are billboards, interior/exterior transit ads, platform ads, construction hoarding, posters, airport, and shopping mall billboards to name a few. They are found in high pedestrian or high vehicular traffic areas. Basically, any form of advertising, printed or digital, that you would encounter outside your home. Pretty self-explanatory.
Now one of the greatest challenges when designing billboard ads for clients is to make sure they understand that you ideally only have time to speak to one attribute of your brand. A billboard is a three second medium, meaning you have little time to impregnate the mind of a potential customer with your brand. Keep it focused and simple. If you include a website URL, address, store hours, a phone number, what your product or service is, God-forbid a hashtag, all in one billboard, you’ll never connect with them. Stick to one message and deliver it in a creative, memorable way.
The person you are targeting is already busy trying to get to their destination in time, listening intently to the latest political battle royale on the radio, flipping for a dance song on a playlist, or trying to sip their coffee whilst eating an apple fritter. There are many bad driving habits you as the advertiser must compete with to distract the driver to notice your billboard. A bad thing really. But a great piece of creative will do just that. And that’s where ad-design professionals shine.
Using online digital ads, advertisers can collect analytics with “clicks” as to who saw your ad or visited your website. With OOH, mostly a traditional medium (which also includes radio, television, and print), there’s no data to be collected at the time of interaction. There are only minds to entertain and connect with your brand and so it relies more heavily on creativity to make a lasting brand impression.
Produced and created properly, OOH ads will deliver folks an emotional reaction that will lead them to your website or make them follow you on social media. They should be considered as part of your brand advertising arsenal because they work. Just Google “award winning billboards” and see for yourself the simplicity that delivers the most powerful messages.
Until November, keep it raw.
Cheers, mark.
