Who put the print ad up on the side of the freeway?

It amazes me how many advertisers are wasting their money these days!

In this time of economic pressure, I would have thought that most marketers would be looking to maximise their return on marketing investment, and not be as frivolous with their budgets as they’ve had the luxury of doing over the past five years. It would seem right to make sure that every cent counts and that one’s advertising works as hard as possible, to achieve maximum results with minimum wastage. Maybe it’s just me, but this really seems like a very sound strategy.

Clearly, the majority of advertisers feel differently. What am I talking about? Outdoor advertising.  Before I have the outdoor owners and OAASA jumping up and down for criticising their medium, let me clarify.  I am in no way suggesting that Outdoor is any less effective than any other medium. On the contrary, Outdoor is a very good medium – it is extremely cost effective, hugely impactful, reaches loads of people and consistently reminds them that one’s brand is available and on sale 24/7.

What I am talking about is the absolute lack of anything that even closely resembles a decent piece of Outdoor creative. I have a client located in downtown Johannesburg and I commute on the M1 highway between Joburg and Sandton at least twice a week - I am therefore exposed to a lot of Outdoor. Being in advertising, I pay attention to what advertisers (especially my competitors) are flighting. What I’ve noticed of late, is that the quality of the creative on billboards is dropping at an alarming rate.

The standard approach to Outdoor creative seems to be to take one’s print ad, point 12 body copy and all, and simply slap it up onto a hoarding. Given that budgets are extremely tight at the moment, I guess this may seem to make sense from the advertiser’s perspective, as he then only pays for one set of artwork. However, were he to stop and consider how the medium works, this tactic is suddenly presented with all kinds of problems.

The majority of billboards are situated on major arterials, elevated at least five metres off the ground and usually about 10 to 15 metres from the edge of the road. Given that most of us don’t know what a speed limit is, the average motorist probably has between five and ten seconds to see, react, read and comprehend everything on the board. How, in the name of all that is holy, is someone supposed to read the five different messages, plus take in the picture and identify the brand (which is usually too small to be seen in the first place) all in the space of five to ten seconds?

If no one can actually recall what they see on your billboard, why pay R100 000 per month to have that communication on the M1? You might as well put that money in a bag and drop it in the bin on garbage day because that will give you about the same return on your investment!

I know that I may be over dramatising to make my point, but the sad truth is that I am actually not that far from the truth. There are probably about fifty billboards on the M1 stretch between my office and my client, and I can honestly say that I can only remember the brands and their respective messages of about five of them. And, remember, I am in the business of advertising!

One of the media agencies in the UK famously conducted research, which illustrated how consumer recall falls each time an additional message, is added to the creative. In the example used, a billboard with one single minded message achieved a recall of 41.1%. They then added message by message and by the time they got to five, recall had fallen to 29.2%.

I don’t know who is to blame. Is it the client who, because he has less budget is trying to get as many messages up as possible? Is it the creative agency that doesn’t understand the basic principles of what constitutes a good billboard? At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter who is to blame. The important thing is to start the education process so that we all get it right in future.

Here are seven little tips that the Outdoor industry has circulated over the years, to help the creative agencies develop better ads and to assist the client to evaluate them:

1.    Product identification: Is the product AND your brand clearly visible?
2.    Short copy: Is the message single minded and expressed quickly and with impact?
3.    Legible type: Can people read the copy from a distance?
4.    Large illustrations: Can the pictures be seen clearly?
5.    Bold colours: Are the colours impactful or do they clash?
6.    Simplicity: Can the reader understand the message in ten seconds?
7.    Intrigue: Will it attract attention? Is there an idea?

Finally, remember the golden rule – less is always more! Outdoor is a unique medium where different rules apply, so use the medium properly to get results.

By: Richard Lord, Associate Media Director, The MediaSho