Outdoor Marketing Tested, Becomes More Prominent

Selling to Kids, March 31, 1999

If your ad message isn't getting to kids on their way to the mall, you can be sure someone else's is. Marketers spent $2.3 billion on billboard advertising in 1998, a growth of 9% over 1997.

The medium is growing faster than newspapers, magazines, and broadcast TV, but slower than cable or the Internet. Gap, Fox Kids TV, Kellogg, Levi Strauss Company, Old Navy and M&M Mars are among those targeting kids on the street and the highway.

Outdoor advertising "can target areas where kids congregate - on the way to school, inside malls, near movies," says Nancy Fletcher, president of Outdoor Advertising Association of America (OAAA), Washington, D.C. Americans in general get out of the house and into their cars more than they did in 1970. Daily trips in vehicles are up by 102%, daily mileage is up by 110% and the number of cars on the road is up by 147%.

In cars, radio, magazines and billboards send the only ad messages that can reach young passengers - at least until more cars come with TVs and VCRs. That means there's less competition for kids attention in the car or bus than in the home where the Internet, TV, games and the telephone can distract them.

The reaching-kids-where-they-go philosophy also should spur marketers' interest in other forms of out-of-home advertising like bus shelters, mall posters, basketball backboards and convenience-store floor graphics. That's why it was a no-brainer to put a campaign to reach runaway kids on bus shelters, says Fletcher. Last year, advertisers spent $4.4 billion on out-of-home advertising, according to Outdoor Services, Inc., a media buying service.

And for the first time this year, the Traffic Audit Bureau and government transportation studies will begin measuring the number of kids traveling in cars. Traditionally the studies, produced every five to seven years, measured numbers of adults per car. "We're looking to come up with a total population to include kids," says John Hunt, OAAA's research director, "because companies like Gap know that teens and kids do travel."

Billboards Boost Awareness

But some companies are not waiting for government data to prove the validity of advertising to kids through billboards.

In May, J. Walter Thompson tested outdoor advertising as a medium for reaching kids for Fox Kids TV. The results of the boards for "Power Rangers," "Silver Surfer," "Toonsylvania" and "Ned's Newt" in two test markets didn't shake the earth, but they showed 26 percent more awareness of the boards in the test markets than in the control markets. The boards were only in the test markets, but Hunt cites a research phenomenon called "yeasaying." In control markets, when those polled think they've seen billboards, they're really recognizing the brand from another medium. Researchers also figure yea-saying goes on in test markets.

The study indicates that outdoor ads appear to have an impact among kids and led to these recommendations:

* Kids respond more to outdoor ads for brands they already know so use billboards only to reinforce established programs or characters;

* Promote new products more heavily on-air or by other methods;

* Outdoor is most effectively measured by a visual aid than by recall;

* Outdoor should be used along with a more traditional ad campaign;

* Frequency still is important when using outdoor advertising;

* Place outdoor where kids will see them. Twelve percent of kids surveyed recalled specific locations where they'd seen the billboards: near a beach, amusement park and a highway.

* Billboards work best with kids when they show action, like the ones with louvers that change every five seconds, showing up to three different ad messages.

In November 1997, Perception Research Services also tested billboards for Kellogg's Rice Krispies Treats Squares. A third of the 1,200 interviews (half pre-awareness; half, post-awareness) were conducted with kids ages 13 to 19.

In the post wave, the study showed hikes of 16 percent in unaided brand awareness as a result of the billboards. Other types or awareness also inreased: unaided ad awareness (14%); aided brand awareness (3%) and ad awareness (6%). Overall, of the 73 percent who recalled the snack 9 percent recalled the billboards. TV still showed the highest recall rate at (61%) with newspapers and magazines (6%) and bus shelters and bus sides (4%) far behind.

Clutter Equals Blur

New technology and changes in legislation also are making billboards and outdoor advertising more attractive to kids marketers.

Billboard messages now are produced digitally on vinyl, making it easier companies to control quality. This is attracting bigger retailers like Gap, who can be sure that 200 billboards scattered around the country will be identical, says OAAA's Hunt.

Timing is another benefit to digitally produced signs. The vinyl can be designed, printed, rolled up, shipped and adhered to many billboards in a fraction of the time it would take to hand-paint one billboard.

Recent legislation also has served to unclutter the billboard market. Tobacco companies have represented as much as 20 percent to 30 percent of billboard advertising, but last year's federal settlement with the industry forbids such advertising, which will free prime real estate for fashion, fast food and movie clients that pitch to kids. That area of the settlement is being phased in on a state- by-state basis. The settlement also has tobacco companies paying for antitobacco messages on billboards targeting kids.