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The Power Of Outdoor

Why is outdoor advertising so powerful? In my opinion, the medium works well for lots of reasons.

When you are driving, you tend to enter a more reflective state. You escape the office or your home, and have a moment to actually reflect on your life and examine your thoughts. When you are reflective, you tend to also be more receptive. And when a powerful advertising message reaches a receptive consumer, magic happens. A driver cruising Ben White has billboards as their daily companion. This is the ideal opportunity for advertising to be not only noticed, not only remembered, but to actually impact the viewer.

Outdoor advertising honors today’s time starved consumer. We are bombarded with advertising messages throughout our day. And today’s multi-tasking, overworked consumer doesn’t have the interest or bandwidth to remember much about your advertising campaign. IF you are lucky, you find a way to break through. They see or hear your ad and they take away that “one thing”… The one core message we hope that will stick onto their 6 inches of grey matter. And that’s the beauty of billboards. An effective outdoor campaign spoon feeds the consumer your key message. In an easy to swallow, easy to remember, distilled format.

There was a creative director from Goodby I met years ago who insisted that his team design a billboard for every single ad campaign they did; even if they weren’t going to be using billboards. He said that if they hadn’t distilled their message to “billboard simplicity”, they still hadn’t nailed their concept. And there’s something to be said for that type of clarity today.

In Austin, we are blessed with growth. But that means that we have to spend more time on the road than just about anyone.The more time driving, the greater our exposure to outdoor advertising. Who drives the most? A younger and more affluent audience. An audience that most advertisers are trying desperately to reach.

I just came back from the Outdoor Advertising industry’s national convention. It’s mind boggling how some brands are reinventing this medium. Not just through digital displays, but some futuristic stuff using augmented reality experiences (have some fun and Google “Augmented Reality; Pepsi Max”). BMW Mini was one of the first to offer targeted digital campaigns that advertise directly to individual Mini drivers.And the next big thing? is using Beacons to transmit messages to mobile devices, offering a truly interactive experience. Definitely not your Grandfather’s billboard.

Your message, all over Austin, reaching a high percentage of our population is the bee’s knees. So talk to the experts at Marketing Matters and they can help you to make the power of outdoor advertising work for your business.


Karen Goumakos is the General Sales Manager of Reagan Outdoor Advertising of Austin, Austin’s locally owned and operated billboard company. She is a dynamic advertising and public relations professional with 20 years of success in creating advertising and communications campaigns that produce results. Goumakos is also a past President of the Austin Advertising Federation.

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