Do Billboards and Outdoor Advertising Still Work?

Billboard advertising may seem outdated in this age of digital marketing coming at the consumer from every direction. Can billboards compete with more high tech forms of advertising?

According to a study that was broken down by Forbes here it does work and is a very strong form of advertising. People spend an average of 20 hours a week in their car and travel 200 miles. During that time drivers are paying attention to what is around them…well hopefully! Some statistics from that study state drivers said they had:

• Learned about an event they were interested in attending (58%)
• Learned about a restaurant they later visited (58%)
• Talked about something funny they saw (56%) on a roadside billboard
• Been reminded to tune into a TV program (33%) or a radio station (44%)
• Noted a phone number (26%) or Web site address (28%) written on an outdoor billboard

Drivers are paying attention to and remembering large amounts of information every day from billboards, and while most of us cannot remember a phone number we can remember to look it up later. As far as buying and influence compared to a purchasing decision goes, there is a strong correlation between billboards and purchasing habits as well. The study says “billboard viewers make shopping decisions while in the car”:

• 72% of billboard viewers frequently or sometimes shop on their way home from work
• 68% frequently or sometimes make their shopping decisions while in the car
• 38% make the decision to stop at the store while on their way home
• 24% say they were motivated to visit a particular store that day because of an outdoor ad message
• 32% visited the retailer they saw on a billboard later that week
• 50% reported receiving directional information from a billboard
• 24% said they have immediately visited a business because of an outdoor ad message

Retailers that can target drivers with things they can pick up that day, so close to where they are now and have what they want to purchase can really benefit from using billboards. Just because billboards are not as flashy as internet advertising on television does not make them ineffective or outdated, it just means they are a different form of targeting consumers.

Written by  Kerri Rosenthal, 
http://www.stevensonadvertising.com/