Top Tips for Great Outdoor Advertising

You can’t create unless you’re willing to subordinate the creative impulse to the constriction of a form. — Anthony Burgess

Outdoor advertising is the most unforgiving ad medium there is.

Yet, because of its limitations (and not in spite of them), its potential impact is enormous. The creativity required to push a short, meaningful message into the consciousness of a driver passing at 60 mph, who most likely has no interest in your message anyway, almost guarantees that overcoming outdoor’s built-in obstacles will make your billboards effective. All it takes to have a shot at success is to follow a few simple rules.

So why do so many advertisers — including major corporations and leading agencies — waste so much money on such ineffective messaging? That's a mystery. But perhaps if they follow these five rules, they can stop the flow of money down the drain:

Rule #1: Brevity

Unless traffic is at a dead standstill, someone driving past your billboard has two to four seconds to ingest your message. That’s enough time to internalize a photo, a brandmark and up to about seven words. It’s not enough time to read directions to your location, a long headline, a customer quote and a phone number. Keep your copy to a single thought not more than seven words long.

Rule #2: Readability

Even if you follow the brevity rule, if no one can read your ad, you waste big money. Your text has to stand out from the background. Black on white or yellow, or the opposite (white or yellow on black), are among the most readable combinations for type legibility. Red, blue or any other dark color contrasted with white or very light colors is generally readable as well. On the other hand, dark, rich colors can go solid black under the glare of the sun in certain conditions, and saturated colors played against each other usually don’t provide enough contrast to be legible. Red on blue, for example, is often completely unreadable. Size of type is important as well. Your designer may think small type is hip, but if drivers can’t read it, you lose.

Rule #3: Clarity

So many billboards look like so much mush, because of bad photos, indistinct shapes and poor layouts. Nowhere is clarity as important as in an environment flooded with visual stimuli, cluttered with power lines, buildings, road signs and other drivers. If they can’t make out your message at a glance, you’re dead in the water.

Before you approve artwork for a billboard, print a color proof at a scale of 1/2 inch = 1 foot. For a 14 X 48 billboard, that’s 7” X 24”. Tape it on a wall in a big room. For every foot you walk away from it, that’s the visual equivalent of 24 feet of actual distance. If you can make out every detail at 20 feet, you’re doing okay; that’s a little less than 500 feet of road distance. 30 feet is better. It takes a car going 60 mph a little under 8 seconds to go 700 feet. If the driver can read your board at that distance, you’re ahead of most advertisers.

Rule #4: Relevance

So now your message is short, readable and clear. But what if nobody cares? Nobody cares if you’re “voted Number 1” or if you’ve got the largest inventory. If you do happen to lead your category, that’s great, but what customers want to know is what value you offer them, from their own point of view. Moreover, they want to believe your brand promise, and to feel a connection based on trust, affinity and shared culture. They don’t want to shop where their Dad shops (or their kids, or their husband, or their girlfriend). They don’t want to see your pot belly and smiling mug. They want to identify with your brand, to feel like you can understand and relate to them. A bit of market research goes a long way, especially in a medium as demanding as outdoor.

Rule #5: Engagement

The average American is exposed to somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 brand messages every single day. Seriously. What that means is you are competing not only with those in your actual category and market, you are competing for attention and mindshare against ads in other media. In addition, you're competing with everything else that crashes into your prospect’s consciousness, including the part of his experience that has nothing to do with marketing. What you say and how you say it will determine whether your target prospect allows you to take up space in his head.

The ways to create a memorable mental disruption and connect emotionally are virtually limitless. Hopefully, you’ve got access to a top-tier creative team who can establish a bond with the driver you’re looking for.

When you invest in outdoor advertising, you’re putting a fairly large amount of money at stake. The risk is well worth the reward if your play your cards right. But if you disregard the rules, you can lose big.