If your customers rarely call you, go outdoors

We were on the phone a few years back with the head of marketing for a major washing machine manufacturer. The guy had a problem -- washing machines tend to work very well for more than a decade, but when they break, consumers rush out and buy a new one within 48 hours. His question: How in the world could he market in such a low-interest consumer category when customers never think about his brand, until suddenly and urgently they do?

We describe such customers as having high modality. It doesn't mean your product is bad or that your customers don't like you. It means your product may be so good, or such a simple subscription model, that consumers don't think about it often until some distant switching point in the future.

If you have customers who don't call often, outdoor should be in your media plan. It works.

Billboard gets a bad rap by some marketers who don't understand it, and say things like "outdoor is just for branding." We challenge that opinion with some raw numbers: Billboard is the second-fastest growing medium in terms of total advertising dollars in the U.S., with share of ad spending up exactly 300% from 1996 to 2007. After the internet, no other ad channel is growing so quickly. By comparison, newsprint ad spending is down 25.6% in the same period.

Major advertisers wouldn't triple their spending in a category unless it was working. Look at OAAA's list of top billboard advertisers and you'll find two patterns: companies that try to steer you off the next highway exit (amusement parks, McDonald's), and organizations such as hospitals, cell phone carriers, and insurance companies where consumers need them only very infrequently.

Why? Billboards build cheap buzz. Companies who have consumers with high modality need to intercept them at a low-cost hum level. American consumers are spending more time in cars, and less time with traditional media as the internet captures attention inside the home. Outdoor has gotten its act together with cleaner formats and new digital boards. Outdoor is the cheapest way to provide a low-level hum.

Outdoor does have problems -- it's difficult to measure response, DEC metrics don't exactly match up with the media math in other channels, bad designs or locations can spoil the impact, and billboards work best when integrated with other channels, making results, yes, even harder to measure. But if customers love you only infrequently, try meeting them in the great outdoors.