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Outdoor advertising has been recognised as the oldest form of advertising, dating back to the time where the Egyptians communicated with murals on walls. However today there are many forms of outdoor advertising ranging from billboards to vehicle wrapping and street furniture to transit advertising.
Mobile Billboard Advertising
Mobile billboards are a form of Out-Of-Home (OOH) Advertising. OOH is essentially all types of advertising that reaches the consumer while he or she is outside the home.
Most mobile billboards are dedicated, customized trucks with large, but narrow, bodies for posting the advertisements. Some of these dedicated units offer features such as external sound systems, illumination, and hot/cold boxes for product sampling. This type of mobile billboard is the most popular among vendor, and the most capable in terms of gaining exposure and quick deployment. Mobile billboards have been described as ‘large ads on to go’.
There are some very clear advantages to using mobile billboard advertising. Firstly, clients have the option of choosing the location they want to target. The ads reach a large audience and are visible to passers-by of all demographics. The mobile billboards are also able to advertise to those that may be missed by more selective advertising.
Advantages of Mobile Billboard Advertising
- Can provide invaluable promotional support to other forms of advertising
- Fully mobile so allows clients the chance to target locations that they had previously not been able to reach with the static billboards
- Excellent for short term tactical campaigns
- The unusual and unique style of mobile billboards are guaranteed to draw attention
- Can be used as stand alone campaigns or as a strategic tool for supporting for other media activity
- Mobile Billboards will always catch someone’s eye
- The mobile billboards are great for creating awareness and keeping the message/company fresh in customer’s mind
- Cost effective
- Can reach multiple audiences simultaneously
- High repeat exposure
- Low competition
It is a constant challenge to find an effective media mix in the crowded media-fragmented marketplace. The abundance of advertising sources can be overwhelming and prove difficult to choose a suitable medium. The following outlines some of the weakness associated with tradition advertising mediums;
Press Advertising (Newspapers & Magazines)
- Ads tend to be cluttered and will be surrounded in larger more colourful ads
- Using colourful or unusual graphics for your ad will be more expensive
- People can skip the pages and ignore your ad
- Harder to target a specific audience as newspapers tend to have a very general audience
- Can be very expensive especially for full sized advertisements in colour.
- Ads can appear anywhere in the paper, left or right and it may cost more to choose the position.
- Newspapers are usually read only once
Radio Adverting
- Need to book a lot of spots to be effective so can work out rather costly
- Your ad will have to work hard to get the attention of drivers
- Car listeners tend to change stations to hear the latest news, traffic reports or to listen to a song
- radio advertising is quick and intangible
Television
- Viewers tend to flick between channels during commercial breaks
- Very expensive medium
- Cluttered with competitive commercials
There is a common misconception that mobile advertising is too expensive and too much hassle, however this is not the case, compared with many of the traditional advertising mediums mobile billboards offer a more competitive and effective solution. Also most companies will offer a banner design and production service to make life even easier.
To be effective, the advertising message must reach the potential customers and there is no easier way than taking the message direct to the customer than with a mobile billboard. With mobile ads, people are exposed to them, whether they choose to or not.
Effectiveness
Industry analysts, researchers and trade representatives have researched the effectiveness of mobile billboards. Outdoor Advertising Magazine said that outdoor mobile media billboards have a 97% recall rate, and 96% of survey respondents thought mobile advertising is more effective than traditional outdoor advertising. 3M and the Road Haulage Association (RHA) noted 91% of the target noticed the text and graphics on truck advertising, and the Traffic Audit Bureau noted that on local routes monthly impressions ranged from one to four millions hits. Product Acceptance and Research said 94% of respondents recalled seeing the Mobile Billboard, with 80% recalling the specific advertisement; the billboards resulted in a sales increase of 107%.
Facts and Figures
- “Outdoor advertising provides locational advantages that are highly advantageous to many businesses”, McAndrew (2006)
- Outdoor ads cannot be “turned off”
- “Outdoor advertising builds top of mind awareness”, Anon
The following figures highlight the potential size of the target audience at specific venues:
- The average weekly pedestrian footfall in Belfast City Centre is 520,000
- 5,015,000 passengers travelled through Belfast International Airport in 2006, an average of 97,000 passengers a week
- The Odyssey Arena has a capacity of 10,000
- Kings Hall has a capacity of 8,000
- Custom House Square (Outdoor Venue) can accommodate up to 5,000 people
- Waterfront Hall Auditorium has a capacity of 2,250
- Grand Opera House has a capacity of 1,001
- The International North West 200, Ireland’s largest outdoor sporting event at Portrush, attracts crowds in excess of 150,000
- St. Tiernach's Park, Clones, Ireland has a capacity of 36,000
- The Brandywell football stadium in L'Derry has a capacity of 7,700
- Croke Park, Dublin, has capacity for 82,300
Figures taken from Belfast City Council’s ‘Belfast: Facts and figures 2006/2007’ publication and http://en.wikipedia.org.
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