Effectiveness of Billboard Advertising

In the United States of America, every citizen, on average, will encounter over one million advertisements every year (Godin, 1999). This means that the average American is seeing or hearing an advertisement every three seconds, every year. It would appear that this rate has been quickly increasing over the past two decades. Since 1993, the amount of revenue from outdoor advertising was $2.8 billion. This figure has nearly tripled in the last seventeen years (Outdoor Advertising Association of America [OAAA], 2010). This rapid increase has occurred in spite of a ban on cigarette advertisements and a decrease in advertisements for alcoholic beverages. To further show its prominence, outdoor advertising is the fifth largest advertising medium in the world (Zenith Optimedia, 2005). Outdoor advertising can cover a myriad of categories, so I will be specifically discussing billboards, as they are the most common and most used form of outdoor advertisements in the United States. At face value, the investment in at least one billboard for a business makes logical sense. According to Kelley and Jugenheimer (2004), Taylor (1997), and Woodside (1990), there are eight key benefits in using billboard advertising: (1) potential placement of the advertisement close to the point of sale, (2) high exposure to regular commuters, (3) high reach, (4) 24-hour presence, (5) geographic flexibility, (6) economic efficiency, (7) visual impact from advertisement size and message creativity, and (8) brand awareness. From these benefits, it is no wonder so many businesses do not question the value in a billboard or multiple billboards. However, with this much money and effort put into billboards, the question must be asked, are billboards actually effective as an advertising medium? Yes, advertisements are popular, can get the attention of a consumer, and be easily noticed, but none of that matters if billboards are not effective in achieving the goal of a company in using a billboard.

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