Why The Cost of Billboard Is Unjustifiable
The cost of Billboards.
Sometimes, it is difficult to determine the correlation between the cost of a billboard and the subsequent shift in demand.
COVID-19 and the consequences for the OOH Industry
As the economic impact of COVID-19 continues to unfold, brands and agencies need to re-image their advertising methods. The out-of-home (OOH) advertising players will need to rethink their strategies before the damage deteriorates to them bleeding clients too. According to a survey conducted by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) it is believed that traditional out-of-home advertising is expected to suffer (Forbes) an estimated ad spend decline of 51% for March and April and a decline of 41% for May and June.
The 2020 Ad Forecast released by MAGNA, a company which provides strategic investment and media intelligence it is expected that total linear ads (National and Local TV, Radio, Print, and OOH) sales will decline by -12%. OOH, and print media are expected to take a hit of -12% and -25% respectively.
Adzze has been re-thinking the advertising tactics adapting to a more sensitive message. The team has working on extending its capabilities to offer advertising concepts that can reach the consumers at their safest place: at home. One of these methods uses pizza boxes as advertising space. Think of this as small moving billboard that gets delivered at the consumer’s home. Studies demonstrated that this type of ads can evoke an 80% recall rate (8 out of 10 households individuals remember to see an ad on the pizza box) with an average ROI of 150%. This means, for every 1 dollar the advertiser invested in a pizza box advertising campaign, they received at least additional 2.5 dollars of sales. For more details, see the article Estimating the ROI of Pizza Box Marketing.
The cost of a billboard advertisement is high
Blank billboards and cancelled digital ads across the country and many parts of the globe is a strong pointer to how the coronavirus pandemic sweeping the world today has impacted sign advertising. The devastating effects of the pandemic on human lives could almost be likened to how terribly it has also dealt with businesses around the world. Some out-of-home advertising firms have withdrawn their earnings projections for the year as a result of market uncertainties at the moment. The cost of billboards will become unjustifiable. A good number of businesses that will survive the pandemic will most likely have to struggle to find their footing again. Reports also say that digital ad giants, Facebook and Google have also had their shares of the downturn. Even Coca-Cola has soft-pedaled its marketing drives.
When it comes to billboard advertisements, one thing is clear. The pricing of the billboard is high throughout the US and worldwide. On average, a business spends not less than $15,000 on digital billboards inexpensive US cities like New York. In small to medium towns, the average cost of advertising via billboards ranges from $1,500 to $4,000. Now that is a lot of money, especially for a small company.
On the contrary, alternative advertising techniques like in-the-hand marketing are very cheap and more effective. For instance, $15,000 can place ads on over 65,000 pizza boxes. These pizza boxes can cover over 32 different locations in a city. Interestingly, you will be lucky to generate 100,000 with a billboard in a city like New York per month. In contrast, pizza boxes go in the hands of the target customers.
Ads on pizza boxes get delivered at the consumer’s home