Roundabout advertising, does it drive sales or just drive you round the bend?
The days when your town’s centerpiece was maintained and sponsored by a landscape gardening company are well and truly gone. The trend now sees roundabout advertising on nearly every major roundabout in the country with sponsorship coming from nearly every business sector. But how have we gone from ’sponsoring’ to ‘advertising’ and in any case does it work?
In 1995 a small firm convinced local councils to allow them to sell advertising space in return for the upkeep of their roundabouts. Since then several other companies have emerged offering a similar scheme, as a result the vast majority of councils nationwide have signed up to roundabout advertising.
How does it work? Quite simply the local council receive around £2,000 per year, per roundabout from these firms to go towards the maintenance of the roundabout as well as act as additional income for the council. The advertising space is typically sold in blocks of 6 or 12 months but can be as much as 5 years. Depending on the amount of traffic a roundabout receives determines the value of the advertising space. The average hoarding is around £3,000 per year but can be as much as £8,000+ per year.
Does it work? Well, yes and no. Let me explain, the days of sponsoring a roundabout were just that, sponsoring and giving support to, this level of generosity can have a very positive effect on public awareness and increase the reputation of your business. Unfortunately since the various private firms have taken over the UK’s roundabouts the public affection seems to have dropped as well as the word ’sponsorship’ which has been replaced in favour of ‘advertising’.
The reason sponsorship was a successful method for landscape gardening companies was quite simple, they maintained the roundabout with elaborate floral displays and designs which promoted the level of workmanship for all to see. There was a direct connection with landscaping firms and roundabouts and the whole thing acted as a giant billboard for the landscape gardening company.
The problem facing potential advertisers now is that nearly every town and city is saturated with roundabout advertising and rather than it being seen as a public service in many instances it’s seen as a nuisance and a driving hazard which can inadvertently have a very negative impact on the rep of your business.
Putting negatives aside how could roundabout advertising help your business grow? Because of the limited ‘viewing’ time a driver will have to read your ad it’s advised for maximum impact just have a logo, website address and/or phone number at the most. Because of the limited amount of info read the hoarding will not act as advert in the traditional sense, it will act as more of a brand awareness exercise and as such advertisers should not expect to yield any healthy results in the short-term at least.
Brand awareness is to literally put the name (logo) of your business into the public domain as much and as often as possible, if your service or product is aimed at the general public you have almost limitless possibilities of how this could be achieved, using the road is certainly a possibility. For business services or products you should limit your brand awareness to specifically targeted mediums, roundabout advertising may receive lots of traffic but most of that will be the general public. Any chances of receiving a prospect are significantly reduced.
If your business has an association to roundabouts like landscape gardening or the roundabout itself acts as a mini landmark to your business location you will have a much better chance of getting a return on your investment.
In short, there are far more successful and cost effective advertising methods.
convert this post to pdf.Posted: January 21st, 2008 under Advertising.
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