The Impact of COVID-19 on the Advertising Industry
As the effects of the economic impact of COVID-19 crisis continue to spread with the advertising industry, advertisers start feelings its destructive effects. Marketers are facing a challenge to adapt the advertising message and tactics. Traditional billboards will not be effective as the consumers will be more distanced and spend more time in their homes.
A survey conducted by the platform Numerator indicated many industries are shifting their advertising messaging. As example, restaurants are pivoting to food delivery message. The food industry has been quick to pivot their messaging to focus on in-home delivery options. The increased “work from home” periods will naturally lead to an increase in the time spent at home. Traditional OOH will be replaced by in-home advertising.
Building a Brand requires a lot of construction work!
Adzze has been working with its clients to adapt to a more sensitive message. The team has been extending the capabilities to offer advertising options that can reach the consumers at their safest place: at home. One of these concepts uses pizza boxes as advertising space that gets delivered at the homes of the audience. Think of this as small moving billboard that your target audience will grab in their hands. Studies demonstrated that this type of ads can evoke an 80% recall rate (8 out of 10 households individuals remember to see an ad on the pizza box) with an average ROI of 150%. This means, for every 1 dollar the advertiser invested in a pizza box advertising campaign, they received at least additional 2.5 dollars of sales. For more details see the article Estimating the ROI of Pizza Box Marketing.
Advertising bars attracts more attention than digital
According to recent Accenture research, the share of buyers’ budget allocated to digital and mobile advertising is now equal to their budget for television (1). Despite the digital hype, there are several pitfalls that are still unaddressed. According to Lumen Research (2), only 4% of digital ads are viewed for more than 2 seconds and a mere 9% are viewed for more than one second. The study covered the population of 300 consumers’s laptops generating data on 15,000 online ads leveraging eye-tracking technology.
New concepts have been emerging to address the engagement of the audience and the increase potential brand lift. In-the-hand advertising is a sub-segment of ambient advertising that is based on placing advertisement on unusual items or in unusual places where people wouldn’t normally see it. An example is Drink Coaster Advertising
Advertising bars: how does it work?
The logo and message of the advertiser are printed on bar/restaurant coasters and distributed to the venues (bar or restaurants) that the advertiser select. Specific targeting is enabled with an in-house technology to profile the demographic region and pick addresses according to the media plan.
The venue places the coasters on the dining or bar tables generating a direct impact on consumer who receives the message in their hands. This enabled guaranteed impression as they have to take the coaster in their hands. Approximately 1,500 coasters/month are distributed by each venue generating estimated 0.7M of impressions.
A catchy message on the drink coaster can significantly impact brand recall
Advertising Bars: eliminate the negative impact of visual pollution
Billboard are widely known as major contributors to visual pollution. The negative impact of billboard advertising on local quality of life and enjoyment of public spaces has been broadly researched (3). In 2015 several cities attempted to ban billboard advertising. First it was São Paulo, then Chennai, Grenoble, Tehran, Paris and even New York initiated movements to replace or ban outdoor advertising (4).
Drink Coaster Advertising is like a small moving billboard that the target audience will touch it. Drink coaster ads can be very pleasant, creative and surprise the consumer in a relaxing environment. There is no impact on visual pollution since the ads are so small and noticed mostly by the people who handles it.
Advertising Bars will change
Fortunately, Adzze’s new age marketing strategies offer innovative ways to navigate the storm and help brands to take their message into the homes of the consumers. Unique advertisement ideas have surfaced across the landscape; these strategies include placing ads pizza boxes and door handles that can reach the consumers at their homes. As simple as they sound, they generate guaranteed impressions delivering the ads at consumer’s homes.
The advertisement is printed on pizza boxes (or pizza toppers) and shipped to the pizzerias that the advertiser selected. The advertising pizza venues distribute to the consumers locally or they deliver at their homes. These venues are recognized pizza chains, so the advertiser has exposure to reputable brands. The pizza box ads get delivered in the hands of the consumers at their homes reaching on average 45 min of brand exposure. Sometimes the consumer leaves the pizza in the fridge generating additional exposure. On average, each Pizza Box Advertising venue delivers 2,000 pizza box ads per month with an estimate 1.8M impressions/month.
There are few reasons why marketers would choose Pizza Box Advertising instead of other traditional media vehicles:
Advertising Bars: benefits
There are several disadvantages of using billboard as a way to advertise a business including very brief exposure time. The stationary nature of billboards offer a short attention span that limits the perception and assimilation of the message. Many commuters are exposed to several billboards each day. The advertisement becomes easy for drivers to ignore it.
Drink Coaster Advertising can not be ignored. The coasters are given in the hands of the audience and placed under their drinks. Each drink coaster can be viewed by on average 4-6 other people in a relaxing environment enabling the audience to better assimilate the message.
More affordable than traditional media
Billboards in busy metropolitan areas might vary from $8,000-$20,000 per month. With the same dollar value, the advertiser can place 50,000 bar coasters in 33 different bar/restaurant locations causing a significant impact on 200,000 consumers and more than (estimated) 24M impressions.
In addition, most billboards require advertisers to enter into long-term contracts. If the media strategy requires multiple messages delivered at specific times, billboards cannot deliver.
Conclusion
Despite the hype of the digital era and the glamour toward to billboards, these advertisement media have been proven to be ineffective and expensive in certain media placements strategies. Drink Coaster Advertising might initially seem to simplistic but the impact on the audience attention and brand lift can not be underestimated. Other type of vehicles can be leveraged as door hangers, coffee cups, hotel key cards, pizza boxes, shopping bags, valet tickets.
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