SaskEnergy has put up billboards all over Regina about their latest offering. If you need a furnace you can get a loan from SaskEnergy for prime plus two percent. Seems like a normal billboard right? Wrong.
SaskEnergy obviously understands that many households are in need of a new high-efficiency furnace but can’t afford one. How do you help out low-income homeowners and create some goodwill for your organization without spending thousands of dollars? Offer an affordable method of obtaining a furnace. The two percent covers the cost of advertising and admin work so they are probably breaking even financially, but in the eyes of the community SaskEnergy looks great.
SaskEnergy went out to advertise their newest offer and came back with some goodwill. If only more of our crowns would set out to attach some goodwill to their advertising.
Have you noticed an increasing trend in your city with these digital billboards? Animation on an illuminated sign offering state of the art advertising, sounds like the future doesn’t it? Hardly. If you haven’t noticed, these signs are popping up all over the place, a friend and I counted off the top of our heads how many there are in Regina, sixteen. (to see them all click here) sixteen billboards all claiming to offer thousands of “views” per day depending on the location.
With the city being saturated with these digital boards paired with the difficulty to measure their effectiveness, paying clients to fill the spots are becoming sparse. So who’s advertising on these boards? The surrounding businesses. Count the next time you’re at a red light how many ads show up that are for business in the vicinity of the sign. It’s astounding.
So if the sign owners aren’t making the money and it’s still not a good medium for your company to buy time on, who wins? Obviously the sign manufacturer’s stock is rising.
Now I would hate to complain about this phenomenon without offering a solution. If you still want one of these signs we put together the perfect formula. If you’re going to buy one ensure you put it up in the area with the most businesses around. Find the part of your city that is saturated with businesses and put up a digital board, that way you will ensure getting the most out of the sign.
For more information on why I don’t like this as a medium read Martin Lindstrom’s Buy-ology.
I want to get exposure for my company, I want my market to know who we are and what we do. I don’t know how to do that so I do what history tells me, I buy a billboard. I know who my market is but I don’t exactly know how to get to them, again, a billboard seems to be the way to go. I’m relatively new to the market so now the billboard is looking even more enticing. “I’ll do it I say!”, the billboard goes up.
I understand that the target market can not be my entire city but hey, I want to get my name out there. My company is a luxury brand, I know that only 10% of the city can actually afford my product but it makes me feel empowered that my billboard is up there. I am satisfied. Really?
Other than an ego boost what has that billboard done? Sure some people will have seen it on their daily drive but does that amount to sales? With over three thousand marketing influences daily did you see my billboard and better yet did you remember it? I don’t think so, but it looks great doesn’t it?
If your product isn’t intended for the masses, why are you telling them about it?
In the 1960’s when advertising took off globally, mass media worked, radio sold advertising, TV was one of the best mediums, billboards commanded your attention, then it hit a tipping point. At a certain point in time advertising became too much, I’m not sure when it was but it was at that point when we had to start ignoring ads. This video clip from marketing guru Seth Godin sums up why marketers have lost our attention. I like ads, I like questioning marketing campaigns but for the first time the other day I caught myself ignoring ads. It was a fascinating trip to the grocery store that proved for myself how hard it is to get a message across, even when it’s staring you in the face.
Just like everyone else in our world that doesn’t shop at Safeway, I received bad service at a grocery store. Such a bad experience drove me to going to their website and trying to give them feedback as to why I was unhappy leaving their establishment. During the feedback questionnaire one question caught me off guard, “Did you notice any signage talking about 1000 flavors of Canada?” I reflected on my visit and couldn’t remember seeing anything so I selected “no”.
A week passes and I’m in the area of this super market again with nothing else close by to patronize instead. In a hurry I decide to pick up something to eat. Entering the super market I recall the survey I took so I look for “1000 flavors of Canada”. Little to my surprise was that the entire store was covered with these signs and I didn’t see one of them in my previous visit, not even one sign.
I finally understood what Mr. Godin was talking about. This grocery store was trying to interrupt me with their signs. It didn’t matter the size or location, I wasn’t looking for them so I didn’t see them.
Just because our eyes see something does not mean our brains remember it. Our generation is getting increasingly better at ignoring messages that we don’t want to remember. Therein lies the power of the internet, it is there for when I want something, until then don’t bother interrupting me with your message.
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