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Pros of Billboard Advertising
• Reaches a bigger audience: Billboard Ads give your brand visibility and put your name out in front of the general audience in a way that is difficult for them to forget. It can have a significantly larger reach than other advertising media. A Billboard Ad on a busy street or location, an example is the Billboard Ad of Airtel (always on with the latest tunes) at the roundabout on Allen Avenue, Ikeja, Lagos where there’s constant traffic and your potential audience is everyone who drives or walks by and your audience will see your advertisement regularly. This increases the number of times people see your ad and helps consolidate your message in the mind of your audience. The size of billboards also gives them a visual impact, making your advertising more noticeable.
• Reaches your target audience by location: Typically, you choose a billboard’s location based on strategic geographical position. This allows you to target audiences in a specific location and, if you get the right messages on your ads, you can encourage people to act on them. For example, if you are trying to introduce a new kind of beverage, your message has to be bold and clear for people to see. This presents your beverage to drivers, passengers, passersby and everyone that engages the road, who are thirsty or want to try something new. Most times it changes consumer’s choice of preference and redirects them to your brand. You can also use this kind of advertising to drive people to engage with other elements of your marketing campaigns, such as social media sites and online initiatives.
• Customized Placement: You can place your billboard advertisement wherever you feel it will have the most impact. This can be a big advantage when you have a brand that you want to draw traffic to right off a particular highway exit. You can also use billboards in areas where reaching people via other media is difficult. An example of this, UNICEF placing a billboard ad in a rural and remote area concerning the Ebola epidemic to serve as a constant reminder.
Cons of Billboard Advertising
• Cost: Billboard advertising is one of the most efficient and strategic form of advertising but its most challenging disadvantage has to do with start-up and maintenance cost. You may need to commit to a long-term contract to run billboard campaigns; high-performing locations are booked in advance and typically come at a premium cost. Depending on the nature and constitution of your advert, your returns on investment might be good but your start-up costs may be higher than with other media. For example, you may have to spend more on design and production. Billboards typically work best if you combine short and snappy messages with visual impact -- it may be difficult to factor this into your campaigns effectively without expert help. Plus, if you decide to run with one ad, and it becomes damaged or weathered over time, you must factor in the cost of replacements.
• Brief: On average, a person driving will see your billboard for about two to three seconds. This means you'll need to keep your messages short and to the point. Billboards do better when they focus more on images than on text. Also, billboards are often seen by people driving by. Since they are in motion, it makes it difficult for them to read. Therefore, any text written on the billboard must be large enough for them to read easily.
• Long-term Commitment: Billboard companies often have businesses enter into contracts that involve long-term commitments. Mainly, this is because it takes a lot of time, energy and money to constantly change billboard ads. Billboard contracts usually cover a duration of three months. This makes billboard advertising less conducive to businesses who frequently change their advertising campaigns on a weekly or monthly basis. Billboard advertising works better for overall business and brand advertising than it does for temporary specials and sales.
• Inflexible: Once a message is up, it generally stays up through the duration of the contract, even if the advertiser's needs have changed. In addition, printing a new message is expensive, possibly taking weeks to produce and days or weeks to have it displayed.
If you are thinking of advertising in Nigeria, please contact PoiseMedia Communications at www.poisemedianigeria.com or check our contact at the bottom of this blog. We can help you identify your market and reach them. We apply both BTL and ATL strategies to project our clients’ brands to the right audience. We can do same for you at very affordable price.
Lilian Izuorah
Business Development Officer
PoiseMedia Communications Ltd
