As is my wont, here are some more bad examples of outdoor advertising. These are bus shelter ads. It’s an unusual medium because some people will read them close up but the focus is really drive-by traffic.

Why so small? It’s my attempt to simulate the effect of driving by at 92kph. Yes, I just got another speeding fine. The ads are for Killawarra wine and Vodafone and really, they should have given their advertising budget to the earthquake victims. Text so small and weedy as to be completely unreadable.

Here’s a better one:

I’m not sure the Fifth Leg cartoon character is all that engaging and I’m not sure it enhances their image as a premium wine but FUNGULO, at least you know who the advertiser is and what they’re selling!

Steve Vizard’s company, Cornerbox, is making a new comedy show for the Ten Network. It’s called The Wedge. Some poor promotional thinking from Ten on this. They’ve been running a teaser campaign which mentions the web site; don’t bother going there – it says “Coming Soon”.

Thanks to Andrew at China Grey who alerted me to this and pointed out that the reward for taking the trouble to visit the web site is to get less information than you got in the original teaser. “Thanks for your interest. We’ve just wasted your time.” Not teasing. Annoying.

Of all the major forms of media, the simplest seems the worst understood. Outdoor advertising involves looking at an ad while you’re a substantial distance away and driving at high speed. Most viewers are driving a car; so they can’t look for long. A half a second maybe? Passengers might have two seconds.

The rule of thumb is 7 words or less and no more than two design elements (i.e. logo + one picture). Less than twenty percent of the ads I photographed met this basic requirement. Include your product name in that 7 words. I’m assuming you want to mention your product. No cheating. If your product name has two words you’re down to 5. Include your web address if you’re using that. If it’s long it counts as two words.

The job in outdoor is capturing the eye quickly. This requires excellent design and that generally means simple and minimalist.

It’s very difficult to judge an outdoor ad when you proof it on a desk because it looks like a print ad. Outdoor is way different to print. One good way to realistically assess the worth of an outdoor ads is to have someone wave the proof at you for a second. “Here it is. Like it? Gotta go.”

Let’s start with the best one.

Clear and simple reminder that flowers are a Christmas gift. Not perfect (the word “interflora” is hard to read) but a sound strategy reasonably well executed.

Second best, but a long second:

Although this meets the design rules it’s a very poor ad. It’s a tease but the image is not enticing. It’s a clothing shop just around the corner from the billboard. Would have been sensible to add “Napoleon Street” so that the punters have the option of finding it.

Next victim:

Hard to read text, too many small confusing photos; a disaster. I drove past this thinking ‘what the hell was that all about?’ Could have been an ad for a horror movie.

Last and least because they’re a big enough company to know better:

I’ve got a great idea: let’s turn our logo into wallpaper so that nobody can see it! In case you can’t make it out, the name of the business is First National. I don’t think I’d be relying on them to advertise my house.

This ad is on the net circulating as a viral email campaign, prior to release on television. Congratulations to all involved; it undermines the idea that you’re being sold to and puts the consumer and the producer on the same side.

My brother Mark, who works in TV sales, comments that the phenomenon of these email campaigns will increase the pressure on the ad industry to improve their creative appeal in ads. Only if your ad is very cool will you be forwarded on to all the mates.

It is conceivable that some of these sorts of ads will never make it to the TV screen. Mark believes (I think correctly) that the weakness in omitting TV is that you lose the frequency. People won’t replay the ads on their computers. Carlton will want to gain maximum exposure so will use TV to get the frequency that delivers top-of-mind awareness.

In this sense the email campaign is just a teaser aimed at the technophiles who like to be senders of clever messages instead of receivers. They also tend to be relatively affluent purchasers.

For some campaigns however the frequency will not be such a big deal. Remember that it costs over a million dollars for a national ad campaign and costs of distributing over the internet are, let’s see, um, nil. This introduces a very interesting trade-off. I can repeat my ad on the TV and make everyone watch it 29 times or for the same money I can make twelve new ads and release a new one each month. Got twelve big ideas?

You probably know there are two dimensions in buying media: reach (% of your audience who see your ad) and frequency (number of times they see it). With a limited budget, there’s a trade-off. You can buy one spot on Australian Idol (high reach) or for the same money you can buy ten spots on Good Morning Australia (high frequency).

Many television and radio stations still talk to clients about the need to reach customers a certain number of times. Warning! If you are a client, this is not a good way to buy media. The stations base their argument on the notion of “effective frequency” which says you have to see a commercial a certain number of times before it is effective. Intuitively, you know this is crap. Mathematically, it’s also crap. Here is a reasonably technical award-winning article from the current darling of the US media world, Erwin Ephron and Melissa Heath which explains why. Summary: get on air as many weeks as you can. Maximise your reach by buying more than one station. Don’t let any suit tell you you need to reach consumers a certain number of times.

The Ephron media buying strategy (he calls it Recency) now has some currency in Australia but the man who first effectively argued against “effective frequency” and the “S-shaped response curve” worked in Wodonga, Australia in the 1980s.

A British-born mathematician, Chris Talbot, developed this argument while working for Uncle Ben’s Australia (Mars Group) who were at the time buying all their media through George Patterson Pty Ltd. (then the largest agency in Australia and now part of the Bates Group). He forcefully and effectively argued that the company adopt it and then challenged the best resourced agency in Australia to re-buff it. They could not.

Not only did Talbot argue this line fifteen years before Ephron made a name for himself in America, he wrote a program which re-allocated the company’s spots to give each brand the maximum reach per dollar spent.

Chris Talbot died young about ten years ago. He deserves recognition for his application of scientific principles to marketing and as a pioneer in media buying. Wherever you are Chris, you were right. There is no such thing as an S-shaped Response Curve.

Recently spoke to the head of one of the big WA wineries about their marketing. Like most wineries they spend all their money on trade advertising; personal selling into restaurants and bottle shops, talking up their quality and offering cut-price deals.

This is fine when you have the leading brand but long term it’s a very expensive way to promote your product. This company has a good “umbrella” brand (a name used for many products) but their volume seller is a sub-brand without much of an identity. Using the company’s well known name, it has the potential to be market leader but unless the current boss disappears it’s not going to happen.

Ask the man in the street café to name all the brands of West Australian wine he knows. Even in this high interest category, they will struggle to name six. If your brand is not one of them, you’ve got your work cut out.

You do not need to be on TV to create a brand. You do not need to spend millions of dollars. You do have to be creative and know what you’re doing. Special mention here for what I believe is one of the worst advertising campaigns on television: Wolf Blass. Shareholders money. Lots of it. Pissed up against the wall.

And an accolade to Poet’s Corner; a great job using outdoor advertising. Cost effective advertising.

It amazes me that wineries do not make more use of radio. I have just created a top-of-mind brand for a West Australian company in another category with a spend over two years of $80K . The leverage that being top-of-mind delivers is sensational. And at present in the wine market no-one is advertising on radio. You’d have it all to yourself.

Normally in an agency it works like this. You (the client) brief an account executive who “learns” your business and interprets your brief. He/she then briefs a creative person who will write the ad. You might ask, “why can’t I just deal with the creative person?” Good question. Agencies like to shield the creative from the client because:

(1) Clients are demanding and creative people are “sensitive”. When the client gets picky the creative wants to punch him.

(2) Shielding reinforces the idea that the creative is a highly paid specialist. The truth is, there are lots of writers, graphic artists and film-makers out there. It’s a buyer’s market.

(3) Shielding stops the client accessing the creative talent direct. Direct contact would cut out the middle man, i.e. the agency’s reason for being.

Advertising is communication and we all know how imperfect communication is even talking face to face! The idea of someone writing your advertising having heard about your business second hand is just dumb.

That’s why I work directly with clients and write their material myself. And to my credit I haven’t punched one in years.

Talking to a prospective client the other day about their Yellow Pages advertising which has cost them a packet but is not working for them very well.

They are a catering business. This is a category crying out for an integrated yellow pages and web strategy; a Yeb page. (I know you’d want to know that Yeb is also the Biblical name for the island of Elephantine).

Certain categories of business do not really need a Yeb page; carpet cleaning, air-conditioners and electricians for instance. But highly visual and aesthetic products/services should be taking maximum advantage. Catering is a prime example. When I book a caterer I want to know what it’s going to cost and I want to see what the food looks like. Only one Yellow Pages ad I looked at did this well.

When I book a caterer I’d like to see pictures of what they cooked last Saturday and an endorsement from the happy customer. I’d like to be able to check availability for the date I have in mind. I’d like to see pictures of ALL the menu items available and the prices along side. This requires someone in the business to be hot on the digital camera side of things but the rest is a piece of cake. As they say.

It is a slightly risky marketing tactic because only 40% of people use the web several times a week. So make sure you do it well and make sure your phone number is also prominent.

95% of businesses who place their web address in their Yellow Pages ad don’t actually promote it. It just sits passively at the bottom of the ad. People are used to seeing web addresses now; they’re just background noise.

Highly web savvy customers who are REALLY interested in your product MIGHT visit your web page but if your strategy is to use your web presence as a competitive advantage, give your readers a bit of a clue. “Pics of our dishes at www.dzcatering.com.au”. Or “All our prices on-line at www.dzcatering.com.au”.

Don’t say “visit our web page”. These are not tourists, they’re customers looking for relevant information.