Lately I’ve noticed several different University of Regina billboards around Regina. Now if you immediately jump to “but Jeph you saw them and remembered them. Isn’t that a great billboard?!?” Hardly. Not all exposure is good exposure. Do you think BP’s oil spill was “good” exposure for the company?
Tag Archive for ‘Billboards’ 
The Second Bridging the Media Gap Award
The ‘Bridging the Media Gap’ award goes to organizations that are utilizing online media in conjunction with their traditional media campaigns.
Our first winner was Domino’s Pizza with the “Show Us Your Pizza.com” television commercial.
The Second Bridging the Gap Media Award goes to:
Unexpected TV.com for a billboard advertisement in Regina that is just a URL and a picture. Normally I still wouldn’t look up a site that I saw on a billboard, but a banner ad on a local site displayed the same picture. It was fate, I had to see what Unexpected TV.com was.
It’s a Travel Manitoba initiative featuring and assortment of videos on places in Manitoba you rarely get to see, and I think it’s smart. It allows the viewer to see a completely different side of Manitoba, focusing on the extraordinary vacationing destination. I even took it a step further to see how easy it would be to book a vacation in one of these exotics Manitoba getaways featured in the videos on the site (I didn’t actually book one) but the process to do so was quite simple.
Congratulations Travel Manitoba, you look good!
Sexist? or Smart Advertising?
This ad has been creating controversy in the media this past week and for good reason. Originated on the CBC Canada website, the article talked about the condo developer taking the ad down and offering a formal apology as well as the agency that created them offered an apology but the comments on the article are much more interesting than the article itself, I have quoted a few below.
“They are sexist, tasteless and old-fashioned. They will attract the wrong sort of people who think this sort of thing is okay.”
“has anyone ever heard of this popular slogan: SEX SELLS”
“I don’t know about the rest of you… but I’m not wasting any of my 25 year old scotch on a 25 year old Blonde.”
“The ads don’t appeal to me. But you have to be pretty uptight to let these harmless ads bother you. Wil Knoll says he wouldn’t want to be in a room with people who thought it was a great ad. I don’t think I’d want to be in a room with Wil Knoll.”
From Twitter:
@Jaynauta: I bet the goal of that condo ad was to cause I huge uproar. I’m a guy
The Digital Billboard Formula
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 Continue Reading
Your Ego on a Billboard
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 Continue Reading
Dear Signs: I Don’t See You Anymore
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 Continue Reading
