Billboard Sales —What We Can Do to Raise the Advertising Base for Outdoor Advertising

Raising the OOH Sales High Jump Bar

Bloomberg news posted an article recently on the topic those of us in the OOH Industry have been talking up for months, if not years:  Tech, specifically social media like Facebook and other online media who lead the worlds’ advertising business in revenues, has been spending big dollars in Outdoor Advertising.
A recent article is here⇒ Facebook Pushes Online Ads, Then Spends Its Cash on Billboards.

Tech companies Facebook Inc. and Google are taking in billions of dollars in online advertising, in turn, they are spending their big advertising dollars in Out of Home.

Apple Inc., Google and Amazon.com Inc. are ranked among the top six spenders on out-of-home advertising last year, according to the Outdoor Advertising Association of America. Netflix was in the top 15 but they will likely soon to drop out, I suspect, because they bought Regency for $150 million.  The Netflix investment is Proof of OOH value and their absolute belief in our medium.

What’s more, they’re still one of the most cost-effective ways to reach consumers, said James Goss, an analyst at Barrington Research Associates Inc.  “A billboard is a display that is difficult to ignore.”

The Bloomberg story is obviously a good read if you are in OOH, but we already know all about it.  Time to stop preaching to the choir and get the word out to the uniformed.  Our challenge, your challenge if you accept,  is to share this article with the non believers outside of OOH, to clients direct and agencies who are not buying OOH or whose spend is below their OOH to total budget ratio.

“If you do any outdoor campaign in a unique and creative way, all the people connected on their mobile phones will want to share it on social media,” he said. “Outdoor advertising can become social media.”  Alex Bodman, Spotify’s global executive creative director

Here is what we suggest.

Let’s carry the torch. Plant the flag and herald the OOH message!

Let’s focus on clients direct and share these pro billboard messages with as many advertisers as we can.  Begin by emailing the Bloomberg link with a few OOH photos and two or three key highlights from the article, including the graphics, to clients direct.  Imagine the power and influence, if this week, hundreds of emails reach dozens of advertisers with one message? I am suggesting the mid-sized and small OOH Owners and pure play OOH Buying services participate. The Big 3 of course.  It is the volume of touches which would add impact.

Contact with a short note. Keep it under 100 words with only one message, Big Tech Spends Big Dollars on OOH Because it Works.  Make it your own words. Follow up as you will.  Don’t sell yourself or your company on the first go.

We need to move the Industry needle for more OOH users/ advertisers by broadening our base.

This week, send out to an email to a dozen large Advertisers who use little or no OOH.

Here are a few suggestions on who to send it to.
Here is my list.  What’s yours?

1. RockAuto
2. Stihl
3. Campbell– the soup folks
4. Nestle
5. The Hershey Company
6. American Express
7. Electronic Arts
8. Experian
9. King.com, Zynga, and Supercell – game makers10. Intuit
11. Mastercard
12. Zulily
13. AT&T, Sprint and Verizon -aren’t spending enough. Put ’em on your mailing list
14. DraftKings

What are your target accounts?
I will reprint and share recommendations you suggest.