Outdoor Advertising

When most people think of outdoor advertise, they only think of billboards.  Billboards are a very important medium, but they are not the only form of outdoor advertising.  Outdoor advertising includes billboards, spectaculars, posters on buildings, and basically anything that has a companies name on it and is outdoors. McDonald's has a creative breakfast advertisement at one of their locations.  This location is simply and egg during the day and at night; however, during the hours when McDonald's sells breakfast the mechanical egg breaks open and the yolk reads "Fresh Eggs Daily".  Not only does this let people know that McDonald's is serving breakfast at that time, it reminds them that it will be fresh.

Pros and Cons

There are reasons that billboards decorate the highway, especially around large cities.  These include:

• The reach of outdoor advertising is one of the highest at 86 percent.
• Outdoor advertisements can be places nearly anywhere giving them great geographic flexibility.
• Since people going one way must normally return the same way, or will be going that way the soon again, outdoor advertising has a high frequency.

The problems with outdoor advertising include:

• Customers pass by quickly.  A message must be short or it will not all be read.
• They are influenced by the environment.  If a billboard is in a rundown part of town, it may not be as effective as one around nice, new buildings.
• Some people do not like outdoor advertising in general and will think negatively about advertisers who use such a medium.  

Interesting Facts

• Mobile phone carriers seem to value outdoor advertising.  In 2009 both Verizon and AT&T were in the top 3 biggest spenders on outdoor advertisement, only seperated by McDonald's
• Billboards are sold using 100 gross rating points daily, or 100 showing.  One rating point equals one percent of the target market's population.