Outdoor advertising is about catching your audience’s attention through brilliant and stimulating outdoor art and copy. As the biggest and most prominent form of outdoor advertising, billboards are the best examples of doing outdoor advertising right. As an advertising strategy, billboards can play an important role in your brand’s presence outside of the digital realm.
Focus on a single message with a specific goal.
Each billboard must focus on communicating a single message. Since billboards are often found near roads and public areas, brands compete for the audience’s split-second attention. Having multiple messages adds complexity to your ad. Remember: Your audience won’t stop in the middle of the road to ponder your ad.
Use short copy
The best practice in billboard copy is: Use seven words or less in your copy. While renting an entire billboard to communicate a short copy might not seem economical, your advertising agency will make it worth it. More often than not, billboard copy is purposively short but designed to be effective (because your audience won’t have much time to read a longer message).
The simpler, the better.
In terms of design, keep your billboard simple. Using unnecessary elements in your billboard distracts from your message. Don’t add to the visual noise that other billboards are already emitting. Also, use a minimal number of attention-grabbing images.
Choose the right colors.
Remember to choose hues that reflect your company’s branding when it comes to using colors in your billboard. Consistent branding on every platform creates a strong, unified image in your audience’s mind. If the design calls for different colors, try eye-catching colors and color combinations to draw in attention.
Put a premium on typography.
Billboards are meant to be viewed in a few seconds. Therefore, the fonts, kerning, spacing and visual flow of your content affect your audience’s perception significantly. Make your content easily readable for your audience.
Billboards allow your brand to show how different you are from others. Don’t fade into obscurity by flooding your audience with multiple messages, complex copy, and boring design. Create a tight, direct, and unique billboard that will make your brand memorable for your audience.
Experimental Ads – IBM’s People for Smart Cities Ad campaign – Billboards are often overlooked and ineffective. That is, until now. Ogilvy & Mather France took billboard advertising to the next level. .
This billboard harnesses the energy from oranges to illuminate a neon sign that reads “Natural Energy” & the Tropicana logo. Through several thousand spikes of copper and zink, wiring, and 3 months of testing, DDB made a giant multi-cell battery powerful enough to light up a billboard. Unit9 produced the custom build in collaboration with director Johnny Hardstaff who created the accompanying 90second film.
This professional campaign titled ‘Billboard powered by oranges’ was published in France in April, 2011. It was created for the brand: Tropicana, by ad agency: DDB. This Outdoor medium campaign is related to the Soft Drinks industry and contains 1 media asset. It was submitted about 12 years ago.
The billboard should include a primary message that is seven words or less.
Secondary messages or information should be minimal yet still noticeable.
Any graphics used should be open source / creative commons. Please verify the images copyright status.
Does the message communicate your main idea?
Does your message connect to your brand (creative brief and style guide)?
Make connections between elements in your billboard and elements that be or appear outside of its boundaries.
Please design your billboard using basic aesthetic principles, fonts, composition etc…
Present your billboard to me. You will present this particular billboard to the class.
A Dropbox has been made for the Experimental Billboard. This is separate from the other two billboards. Only upload this billboard to the appropriate dropbox.
