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BASICS |
New to billboards? Here are some of the basics, including a glossary of billboard terms, company background, and helpful tips.
Common terms used in the outdoor industry.
Bulletin/Permanent Programs: When an advertiser buys a specific billboard for a specific period of time, this is considered a bulletin. If you have an advertisement that is tailored to a specific geographic or demographic market, or need it to be facing a specific direction (like for traffic heading towards your business, not away from it), or only have a budget for just one or a few signs, bulletins are best suited to you.
Bulletins come in a variety of sizes. Typical sizes are 10’X24’, 10’X30’, 12’X32’, 12’X40’, and 14’X48’.
D.E.C. or Daily Effective Circulation: Quite simply, this is the average number of viewers to a specific sign each day. It is the outdoor equivalent to the CPM models used in other advertising media. Advertisers use it to calculate the cost per viewer on a monthly basis to determine the relative cost for different billboards or programs. When you do the math, you will see that outdoor is just a fraction of the cost of other forms of advertising.
Electronic Messages: The electronic message signs are still an emerging segment of the outdoor industry. The main reasons you don’t see more electronic signs are government regulation and cost. Moving advertisements (like a video sequence) are generally prohibited on state highways and interstates. Factor that in with a cost of about 10 to 20 times normal billboard costs and you have a medium that is limited to certain specialized markets and advertisers.
Facing: People new to the industry are often confused by this term. In outdoor, it is used to describe which direction the sign is facing. It does NOT describe the direction you need to be traveling to see the sign. In fact it is exactly the opposite. A north facing sign, for example is viewable to south bound traffic. This is important when you are purchasing a sign for directional reasons, like telling viewers how to get to your business.
Pop Quiz: If you want your ad to be seen by people traveling east, which way do you want the sign to face? Answer: West.
Freeways or Streets: Advertisers use freeway signs when they are trying to promote their product or service to a very broad market. There is a lot of demographic and geographic diversity among freeway travelers.
Street signs, on the other hand, cover a more specific geographic customer base. This allows the advertiser some control over who is viewing their ad and creates better targeting for their desired customer demographic. The sheer number of viewers may be considerably less than a freeway ad, but the percentage of targeted customers will be much higher. This is especially true for advertisers who cater mostly to a local geographic market. They can also work well for a specific targeted market segment.
Media Types : Paint, Flex, and Poster are the three most common forms of producing a billboard ad.
Paints are hand painted by professional artists. Paint produces the brightest, cleanest colors and weathers the longest of any of the production methods, at least one year and as much as 4 to 5 years. The limitation on paints is the complexity of copy such as photographs and other highly detailed artwork becomes very difficult (and expensive) to reproduce on a format as large as a billboard.
Flex or Vinyl is a one piece banner with a computer printed image on it. The process is very similar to a desktop inkjet printer. As the technology has proliferated, printing prices have rapidly fallen and resolutions and colors have markedly improved over the last few years. Flexes are now considered an industry standard. Even though flexes are limited in colors and color quality due to the 4 color printing process, their ability to print almost anything that can be created on a computer has made them very appealing, and allowed for new levels of creativity and flexibility in the outdoor industry. Flexes have a life span of 1 to 2 years during which they can easily be moved and reinstalled several times.
Posters are a single ad divided into several pieces, each piece is printed on a small sheet of paper, and then the pieces are put back together on the sign like a puzzle to form the complete billboard ad. This is where the terms 8 sheet and 30 sheet come from. 30 sheet posters were originally made of 30 pieces of paper. Posters became popular because they are very cheap to produce in quantity (using a relatively small printer and low cost materials). Since these ads are printed on plain paper, they have a relatively short lifespan, typically 60 to 90 days (or less in unfavorable weather). Posters use a material similar to wallpaper, and so colors and brightness tend to be relatively dull, compared to other formats.
On-site / Off-site: These are two ways for legally defining signage. On-site advertising is only used for the business or businesses that occupy the same property as the sign. Off-site is, of course, signs that advertise anything not located on the same property as the sign.
To most people this may appear to be a matter of symantics, but municipalities (like cities and counties) define the two as entirely different entities from a legal standpoint. This is why you see auto dealers and regional malls with huge signs in areas where no other signs are allowed.
Rotary/Poster Program : When an advertiser buys into a rotary program, what you are buying is a bulk number of billboards (10, 20, 50, 100+) within a predefined market or multiple markets as defined by the sign company, typically on a short term (60 or 90 day) basis. The advertiser has no say in specifically which billboards carry their ad, the sign company makes that determination based on availability and timing within their operation. Large, national billboard companies typically sell rotaries because the logistics of selling tens of thousands of billboards one at time is just not feasible.
National advertisers are the most common clients for rotaries because they are just trying to blanket a market with their ad rather than target a specific market segment.
Common sizes for rotaries are 30 sheets (about 12’X25’), 8 sheets (about 6’X12’), and Spectaculars (14’X48’ commonly used on freeways). All of the signs within a rotation must be the same size.
General Outdoor Advertising, founded in 1954, is one of the last independent outdoor companies in the Greater Los Angeles market. We began as a family owned business and, in spite of our growth, have never forgotten the basic principles that got us here.
We build long term relationships with our clients. Instead of telling you how to advertise, we take your knowledge of running your business and combine it with our extensive background in outdoor advertising to develop the most cost effective ad campaign we can offer you. We keep our operation small and efficient to avoid unnecessary costs. Yet our staff is experienced and knowledgeable, providing our clients reliable and professional service.
We are a full service bulletin company. When you decide to advertise with us, everything else is taken care of. Every billboard you lease includes artwork provided by our graphic design department for your approval. We can take your idea, photos, logos, etc. and turn them into a professional looking advertisement that conveys your message with clarity and visual appeal. If you already have an ad designed, we can review it with you for its suitability specifically for the billboard locations you have chosen.
We take care of the production, installation, and maintenance. The quality of your advertisement is guaranteed for the term of the contract. Let us worry about the details.
Outdoor advertising works, there is no question about it. And it works more consistently than other forms of advertising. Your advertisement is on display, for everyone on the road, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for months (and even years) at a time. Your viewers aren’t just seeing or hearing a single 30 or 60 second spot on TV or radio, or seeing you once in a magazine or newspaper. You can’t change the channel, turn the page, or throw away an outdoor ad. Every single time a viewer drives past your sign, they think of you, whether they consciously notice it or not. And you get that reinforcement for a fraction of what other forms of advertising cost.
Pricing varies from location to location and depends on numerous factors. Some factors are easy to quantify, like billboard size and traffic numbers (D.E.C.) Others are more difficult like a sign's viewability and the level of demand for advertising in an area. When you factor all those in with the perceived value of a specific sign by potential advertisors, you find there really is no way to create a formula for pricing billboards. It truly is a supply & demand economy.
After pricing, the next obvious question is " How much of a return on my investment can I expect?" Once again, there is no formula to figure this one out because there are too many factors that can't be quantified. In fact, there are probably more here than in the pricing concepts because you introduce theories on how marketable your product is to the travellers on that route and the overall appeal and readability of your ad. However, there are a few rules of thumb:
1. The broader your potential customer base is the more effective outdoor advertising will be. Hence you will notice that the majority of billboards are for products and services the general public has a use for: homes, cars, beverages, fast food & restaraunts, financial (mortgages, loans, banks, credit cards, insurance), clothing, gas stations, etc. In tourist areas, you will also see ads for airlines, hotels, motels, resorts, and local attractions.
2. The less explanation your product or service requires the better. On average a billboard has seven to ten seconds of readability, not a lot of time for details. Part of the reason brands like Coke, Pepsi, and McDonald's are so valuable is because their names don't require any explaination.
3. Following along with the second rule is the concept that not only does your product need to be simple, but your entire advertisement needs to be as efficient as possible. A billboard is not a point of sale, it is a tool to motivate someone to contact you further: visit your store or office, web site, or give you a call. Complete explainations or product lists are not effective on a billboard ad. You just want to tell the viewer what you do or have, why it would benefit them to come to you and not your competition, and how to contact you .
If we still haven't answered your question, please let us know. We're glad to help.
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