mediachannels; Moving Targets - outdoor marketing

American Demographics, Oct, 2000

The on-the-go consumer drives in new forms of outdoor marketing.

Wherever Mark Fernandez goes, people stop and stare. Some greet him with smiles, others wave, a few just shake their heads. The 38-year-old comedian and self-described "attention horse" from southern California loves all the fawning, but it isn't his sense of humor that has the masses turning their heads. It's his car.

"You cannot help but look at this thing," says Fernandez of his 2000 Volkswagen Beetle GLS, which is currently shrink-wrapped in a bright purple advertisement for Jamba Juice, a fruit-smoothie chain. Fernandez, a driver for Los Angeles-based FreeCar Media, willingly turned his wheels into a rolling billboard for two years in exchange for $350 a month, meant to cover his insurance and car payments. Jamba Juice execs specifically chose him because he matched their target consumer: young, active, energetic, and health-conscious. And since birds of a feather tend to, you know, the company is confident that when Fernandez drives his average 1,300 miles a month to his favorite hangouts, their message reaches similar-minded folks. The "edgy" medium offers highly targeted product placement unavailable through other means, says Michael Keller, vice president of marketing for Jamba Juice. "We can pretty much choose the exact neighborhoods we want to be in. Sure, you can do that with a billboard, but a billboard is very static and it doesn't have much personality."

As consumers become more mobile and less attentive to traditional ad vehicles, companies such as FreeCar Media - collectively known as "alternative media" - are redefining the outdoor/out-of-home category. Outdoor advertising has always been considered the ultimate mass medium, reaching everyone with side-of-the-road billboards and ads on bus shelters, telephone kiosks, and truck exteriors. But over the past year, the alternative segment has recast outdoor as a niche marketing tool, offering businesses more creative ways to reach specific types of on-the-go consumers.

Wrapped cars are just the beginning. Ads inside buses, on airplane overhead bins, elevators, gas pumps, public rest-rooms, even imprinted on beaches, have all crept onto advertisers' media plans. While the alternative segment only garners about $100 million to $200 million of the current $4.8 billion outdoor ad industry, it's quickly gaining ground, so much so that this spring the Outdoor Advertising Association of America (OAAA) launched an Alternative Media Council. The council already boasts 25 members, with at least as many applications currently under review.

"There is a growing need among marketers to minimize waste and hone in on their audience," says Diane Cimine, executive vice president of marketing for the OAAA. "Alternative media is how we take the outdoor medium and target it to consumer segments the way other media do, putting it in places that suit the lifestyles of the people who marketers' are trying to reach. People are on the go so much today that you now have to go to them with your messages, rather than wait for them to come to you."

Consumers are in fact becoming more restless. The number of trips Americans take per year (whether by plane, train, automobile, feet, or some other means) has risen from 145 billion to 379 billion since 1969, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. In that same period, the number of vehicles on the road increased at an annual rate of almost 1 1/2 times that of the population; today there is one car for every licensed driver. Air travel is also on the rise, up 5 percent since 1998, according to the Travel Industry Association of America.

At the same time, use of most traditional advertising media is declining. According to media merchant bank Veronis Suhler, daily hours spent with newspapers, magazines, and television (except cable and satellite), will have negative compounded annual growth rates through 2004. Radio is the only traditional medium expected to grow - but slowly - by about 90 minutes per person per year. (See "Radio-Active" on p. 28) In contrast, time spent online will grow by 18.4 hours per person annually, reaching 228 hours in 2004. Increased time on the Internet - a medium that is highly targeted to user tastes - may cause consumers to expect similar customization from all media.

Such trends will drive the alternative segment, says Chip Fisher, president of Park Place Media, a New York-based company that places ads on parking meters and parking garage tickets. He anticipates total spending on alternative media will grow by as much as $500 million over the next few years. As the number of ad-driven outlets proliferates - the average U.S. household today receives 63 television stations compared with 10 in 1980, for example - attention-grabbing via traditional methods will become increasingly difficult. "People on the move are actually easier targets because they are free from all other mediums," says Fisher. "Outdoor is finally being rediscovered."