There are many different marketing mediums, one of the most traditional being print. A billboard, is essentially a giant poster – which today can sometimes be electronic. They are unique as they have a split second to grab the attention of the viewer.
How many billboards do you look at during your walk to the station or your journey home from the airport? Exactly. You don’t, unless its great enough to attract you, make you laugh or think – you simply don’t remember it.
So, what does make a great billboard campaign? What can cause us to miss our turning on route home, because were so involved in the story or the product you can only focus on the advert posed in front of you. A great billboard should spark laughter, shock, or pose the viewer to question, how is that done?
In this blog I have chosen some of my favourite, clever or attractive billboards that have existed – to analyse why they were successful. And then to reflect on a couple that weren’t taken so kindly by the public.
This campaign has perfected bringing the advert to life – and that’s what captivates the onlooker!
Surprisingly this billboard campaign isn’t for paint but part of Nationwide’s Insurance “life comes at you fast” campaign. It’s so cleverly done. As you can see by including the cars and car park floor below the advert, it leaves people wondering how they did that. And posing the viewers to ask questions because of the initial shock – what is that for? What company is this? This advert doesn’t have clarity on what it is for, but the intrigue from it, will captivate potential consumers – its eye catching.
On the flip side to this, we’ve got another unclear message. However, the whole idea of the advert isn’t engaging its just a picture of an umbrella asking about the beach. Hardly going to make someone pullover at a junction before joining the M25 to google what that adverts for (not that you should be doing that anyway). But at least paint covered cars would give me a reason to!
A favourite of mine, is this Miele advertisement. Using an existing tunnel to coincide with their suction vacuum cleaner billboard is just brilliant. You can view the video here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCvV6v2Jfuk for full footage of it in use.
Miele seem to love this idea of bringing their advertisement to life around their billboards. Its brilliantly done. And sometimes with just simplicity as seen below. Not much is needed just the product blow up to the size of the billboard and passers-by can immediately identify that advert with the brand.
Miele’s two billboard examples, are clear and concise. Not cluttered with words or jargon information. According to Marketing Donut (2017) eight words should be your maximum for a billboard advertisement, as a rule of thumb for effective outdoor advertising.
Spotify’s ‘thank you’ campaign to consumers was rather funny. A great way to make an onlooker smile and remember the advert. They’ve used their applications repository of user data to create posters. The ads gather unusual facts relating to their digital music streaming service, and point out unique and funny quotes concealed amid the data.
All in all, a billboard should be concise. And have the humour factor or clarity to the product or theme. The idea is that if a billboard isn’t clear to the onlooker, it should captivate or humour them enough to prompt a google search regarding their advert or slogan. Intriguing the onlooker is just as important as being relative. At the end of the day it is the chance for companies to relay a message to others, by creating potential growth of the viewer’s exposure to the advert (Kirby and Marsden 2006).
References
Kirby, J. and Marsden, P. (2006). Connected marketing. 1st ed. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann.
Marketingdonut.co.uk. (2017). Outdoor advertising – making a big impact. [online] Available at: https://www.marketingdonut.co.uk/media-advertising/billboards-and-outdoor-advertising/outdoor-advertising-making-a-big-impact [Accessed 1 Dec. 2017].