In the driver's seat

American Demographics, March, 1998 by Brad Edmondson

When I'm driving, I think about what I have to do next. After that, I daydream--mostly about women--and I listen to the blues," says Jack Jensen. He drives about 400 miles a week for his job as a federal housing official. That is an hour or two every work day spent planning projects, dreaming of sex, and singing the blues, often at speeds exceeding 55 miles an hour. Jack is a typical American guy.

Nine out of ten American adults drive. Men who drive spend an average of 81 minutes a day behind the wheel, and women drivers spend 64 minutes a day, according to the Department of Transportation's Nationwide Personal Transportation Survey (NPTS). This is more time than the average American spends cooking or eating, according to the Americans' Use of Time Survey by the University of Maryland. It is more than twice as much time as the average parent spends with his or her children. And two-thirds of all car trips are made alone, with only the radio and billboards for company.

Thanks to the construction of interstate highways, the entry of women into the work force, and several other social revolutions, driving has become America's most important source of quiet time. Between 1969 and 1995, the number of drivers in the U.S. increased more then three times as fast as the population, and the number of household vehicles increased six times as fast. We are approaching one car for each licensed driver in the U.S. Home may be where the heart is, but a driver's car is her castle.

The three-decade surge in driving has slowed slightly in recent years, although forecasts call for continued growth. The total number of miles driven on American highways increased 16 percent between July 1992 and July 1997. That is more than the rate of population growth, but slower than the 23 percent increase between 1982 and 1987. Still, gasoline consumption is projected to increase faster than the population over the next two decades, according to the Department of Energy.

The boom in daily travel has been good for several industries, and none has benefited more than companies that sell out-of-home advertising. The revenues of outdoor advertising firms have been growing at an annual rate of 7 percent since 1993. Outdoor advertising are projected to reach $4 billion in 1998, which would account for about 3 percent of all advertising expenditures. But the industry's growth is not concentrated among the 400,000-odd billboards scattered around the country, some of which have been carrying advertising for more than a century. The growth is with advertising that shows up in non-traditional, less-regulated places like taxi tops and toilet stalls. Of the 60,000 buses in the U.S., for example, 37,000 are now plastered with billboard-sized ads.

The billboard trade has grown with the driving boom, and outdoor advertisers have aggressively created advertising space in new places. But when it comes to understanding their audience, billboard marketers have fallen behind the times. Most out-of-home ads are still marketed as a mass medium, with the price of space usually set according to traffic counts and the estimated number of daily "impressions" a billboard makes. While other media have developed sophisticated models to put specific advertising messages where potential customers are most likely to see them, most outdoor advertisers still play a simple numbers game. In print and broadcast media, toll-free numbers have become a standard marketing tool. But even though three in ten drivers now carry working telephones, relatively few billboards invite viewers to make an immediate response.

Until recently, the driving boom and new venues for outdoor ads have left the industry content to ignore its audience. Things started changing when the the federal settlement with tobacco companies took away one of the industry's best clients last year. At the same time, it's getting harder to find flat, unregulated, public spaces that aren't already covered with advertising. To maintain their growth, billboard companies must turn to target marketing. They must understand the hearts and minds of drivers.

Most Americans hold fairly positive attitudes toward driving, and most are tolerant of outdoor advertising, according to a survey conducted for American Demographics by Maritz Marketing Research of Fenton, Missouri. The survey indicates that America's drivers fall into four segments. About one in ten adults does not drive. Another four in ten are light drivers, putting in fewer than 100 miles a week behind the wheel. People in these groups are likely to be elderly and have low incomes, and they are unlikely to hold full-time jobs.

Heavy drivers (those who drive more than 100 miles a week) tend to be the most desirable consumer targets--middle-aged, middle-class, and employed full-time. But they are also the group most likely to be annoyed by billboards, and their negative attitudes become stronger with each advance in income and age.

About three in ten drivers fall into a fourth segment that uses technology to stay in touch on the road. The number of drivers with a working cellular telephone in the car is growing rapidly. Most of them are also heavy drivers. But this is a younger group, and they are more likely to hold positive attitudes toward billboards.