Outdoor advertisements level the playing field for small businesses

Outdoor advertising provides a cost-effective medium that reach targeted consumers as they travel from their homes to their daily destinations.

The role of advertising in commerce is irrefutable. Without it, businesses would simply die.

But advertising doesn’t come cheap. The current average spending budget per brand is estimated at 30 Million pesos (or more). That means a large multinational company which carries several brands may spend more or less a billion on advertising alone.

So how can a small company penetrate a market with cutthroat competition?

Embracing outdoor advertising

Outdoor advertising levels the playing field by presenting an alternative medium for small and medium companies that have limited advertising budget.

Outdoor Media Advocacy Group’s (OMAG) Norman de Leon explains that the cost of outdoor advertising is just a fraction of the current rates

of TV and radio placements. “Outdoor advertising maximizes the advertiser’s selling potential by giving them the advantage of selling more while spending less,” says de Leon. The OMAG is the advocacy group of the Outdoor Advertising Association of the Philippines (OAAP) and other leading industry practitioners.

Outdoor advertising can also serve as an effective medium for public awareness of certain issues, like this LED TV located at EDSA Guadalupe area. This billboard was part of the cleanliness advocacy campaign of the Outdoor Media Advocacy Group (OMAG).

Case in point: Boy Bawang manufacturer KSK Food Products reported that in 2006, it spent an average of 1.2 Million pesos per month for about 14 billboard sites in Metro Manila and Luzon. The same amount would barely cover the cost of 10 30-seconder placements on primetime TV.

Outdoor ads also proved helpful for companies who had to slash their advertising budget during bearish times. “We used to do just tri-media ad

vertising. There was a year, however, when we had to cut down our advertising and promotions budget specifically TV which takes a big percentage,” recounts Gigi Tibi, a seasoned brand manager of fashion lines.

This pushed them to try outdoor advertising. “There were three reasons for this venture: first it allowed us to showcase our product collection in larger-than-life proportions,” Tibi reasoned. “Also, more and more people spend more time traveling to and from their homes to their destinations. They include the rising number of working wives. Lastly, the outdoor ads offered constant repetitive exposure at very low costs.”

Businesses are not the only ones that enjoy this economic benefit; it runs across different industries like non-government agencies and charitable institutions. World Vision Development Foundation, Inc., (World Vision) an international humanitarian organization, for one, utilizes outdoor advertising to generate awareness and support for their causes.

“[The campaign] is called “My World Vision. It is a bandwagon campaign that aims to build awareness for World Vision and get the public involved. We want people to sign-up and be sponsors,” relates World Vision Director for Publics-in-Ministry Boris F. Joaquin.

World Vision relies on outdoor advertising for their campaigns. “We didn’t do TV ads because of budget limitations. Billboard helped the campaign because of the frequency of impressions generated from our prospective sponsors who are regular motorists in EDSA, SLEX, and other major thoroughfares,” he added.

High reach, frequency, and retention

Nobody can underestimate the vast reach of tri-media ads but the impact that outdoor media generates is also consequential. People traversing a regular route get to see a particular outdoor ad at least once a day. It directly targets working people, the so-called decision makers in a household because of their purchasing capacity, who usually spend a lot of time on the road.

Another advantage of outdoor advertising is that it is larger than life. When a company has billboards, it adds to the prestige or brand image of the client. Many clients have mentioned this benefit. It's like when they have a billboard, it helps their brand to be perceived as stable, not as fly-by-night.

“Before we utilized outdoor advertising people didn’t really know a thing about us. They are more aware of us now and they look at us with credibility. The traffic in inbound phone inquiries increased because of that. And people really call. When we ask how they knew about World Vision, they would say that they saw the billboards,” enthuses Joaquin. “We also have a website where you can log on and sign up. Outdoor advertising also contributed to the number of hits in websites.”

The OMAG adds that outdoor ads help consumers develop wise buying decisions. The messages work on the advertising principle of frequency. Since most messages stay in the same place for a period of a month or more, people who drive by or walk past see the same message a number of times.

Outdoor ads have no viewership barriers. Everyone sees them. People can't switch them off or throw them out. They are exposed to it whether they like it or not. Unlike other media where you can easily flip pages or switch channels, you cannot turn-off a billboard because in outdoor advertising, the medium is the message. In this sense, outdoor advertising truly has a captured audience.

Source:

Manila Bulletin

September 25, 2009