If I Had a 2 Million Dollars…
…I’d Spend it All on OOH Media
by Nick Coston, OOH Media Buyer & Agent
Picture this if you will. A new, but well-known client comes to me with a $2 million budget. This is for 12 weeks straight and they want to cover the whole State of Florida. Outdoor media only. Cha- Ching. Doesn’t include production, so don’t go picky on me. They prefer static but will consider digital to fill-in dead spots and for bonus.
I think about it and after 8 seconds I say sure, I can do that. What do you think I was gonna say no and give it to Wilkins? Oh, and they want the proposal within 3 working days while every product has to start and end at the same time. No exceptions.
And did I say they require a 300 to 400 Weekly TRP? You know, what was an old school Jack Sullivan-esque 100 showing level kind of buy—Big and in your face.
So the first thing I do, is contact reps that I have a relationship with in each market. They are on the ground, can act fast and know where every location is. They also know where the good restaurants are. And they want to make a big sale, as does their manager who knows best how much they can deal. They even know how much they’re paying to lease those billboards so they can play with rates better than national guys can.
While I don’t tell them the actual amount of money I have to spend yet, I request from the big companies like CCO, Lamar, and Outfront a proposal for approximately a 250 showing. Must be a mix of static posters, bulletins, and a few key interstate digitals with long reads, well spaced out. I request aggressive rates, but not remnant stuff, I want good boards enough that I could add in the bonus units, really kick up those weekly impressions. Tough, but not greedy.
I still have another, approximately 100 TRP’S to go. But I need outdoor products that are also have high impressions and efficient CPM’S. Did I also mention that they want the overall efficiency to come in at a max of $2.50 a thousand?
No I guess I didn’t. Whoops.
But do I panic? You bet I do. I quickly go thru the OOH product check list. Shelters? Buses? Taxi tops? Gas Station or Grocery Store TV’s? Pump Top Statics? Benches? Wrapped trucks? Malls?
There’s hardly any large public transportation systems to speak up in the state of Florida, so there’s no subway, heck people don’t even have basements.
So after I blow into a paper bag and get my breath back, I opt for the obvious. No matter how different, I add in big ticket numbers only. Florida is a driving state, nobody walks, not a huge bus state, people drive. Especially now when Covid is still a menacing figure in the state. They want their AC blasting, inside whatever they are driving, set on my favorite temperature, “morgue”. It’s Florida, home of well air-conditioned cars.
I do what a lot of the Personal Injury Lawyers do, I add in a crapload of city and municipal bus tails that cover key, heavily traveled thru-streets; then add digital taxi tops in the bigger markets that hit the core city; the static one sheet posters that are on most of the states toll booths; digital one-sheet sized screens that appear on the back of big semi-trucks to cover the interstates “billboard dead spots” with great dwell times and finally aerial banners flown in those Wright Brothers props that cover both East and West Coast beaches. People love those old contraptions.
I go with digital only on the taxi and ride share/delivery cars and the backs of big trucks that keeps my printing costs down and I can use multiple copy while GeoFencing certain areas. I might not need areas that are already covered by traditional OOH so why duplicate.
But whatever I buy, I snag a lot of it, a lot of posters, a lot of bulletins and maybe the big companies sprinkle in some bonus transit shelters where present. A lot of bus backs, a lot of metropolitan area taxi displays and those big rigs that are on the interstates. They’re efficient and get a lot of eyeballs so I buy one flip on both those products that add state-wide coverage.
Because I’m spending $2M in a span of 12 weeks, I get request bonus units on all products that could rotate every 4 weeks.
And voila, I come in at a hair shy of a 400 Weekly TRP, an efficient CPM well hitting no more than $2.50 and no dead spots. Anyone traveling north and south, east and west through the state, we are there. On interstates, state highways, main city routes and the heavy beach areas. You can’t miss seeing my clients copy. There’s so much on the road that you may even crash into it.
OK that’s a stretch, but I’ve used that line in the past it seems to work at least once a buy.
Included in the budget are pre-posting date market rides, good tunes, beef jerky and Wawa Coffee.
Did I say who the client was? Did I?
Awww, hell no I didn’t, you’ll just have to wait till it’s up.
Damn poachers.
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