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Look Over Here: Exploring the Attraction of Billboards By Paul Albright These days it feels like you can’t go a minute without someone shoving a product down your throat with advertising. Our lives are being taken over by capitalistic ideas and everything we see is beginning to reflect that. Every time you open your email or check social media you are flooded with sales and promotions, but it doesn’t stop there. Even when you are offline you can’t walk one hundred yards without coming across huge banners selling you something. It is not necessarily a bad thing; it is just the way things are now. Advertising is necessary to move units and this is reflected in our fast-paced society. To be fair I am from Chicago, so my perspective on this topic may be different from others. From what I have seen billboards are one of the biggest advertising tools used. As I learned more about advertising, I became more interested in billboards. So, how do I get people to come buy my product? Slap it on a huge sign and make it pretty. This is essentially what a billboard is, a giant advertisement. There are many different types of advertising, like commercial, online, and mobile advertising, but billboards have their own special uses. First of all you can’t really avoid a billboard. While driving on the highway or in the city billboards stick out of the road like a sore thumb. With huge lettering and eye catching designs it is hard to not shoot a glance at the large signs. The design is key to how the billboard works because that is the beginning of how someone sees the billboard. After the visual aspect the billboard needs to have some kind of message to go along with it. The message can take one of two approaches: emotional or economic. The emotional approach causes some kind of emotional response in a viewer, whether it is laughter or crying. The economic approach appeals to a viewer’s pockets. An example of an economic approach would be a billboard advertising a “two for one” shirt promotional sale at a retailer. The distinctions between these two types of billboards reflect how a company wants to be seen by consumers. I always had a particular interest in billboards. Every time I was ever on the highway the colorful signs and the alluring messages mesmerized me. As a consumer I felt almost forced to look at billboards, it’s how I feel many of us were raised. America is the capitalist country that keeps us all wanting more and more. On one particular highway adventure I saw a Chik-fil-A billboard that had the very crudely written words “Eat Mor Chikin”, with two cows painting the words. I started laughing right when I saw the sign because I got the joke. The joke was that cows are trying to convince people to “Eat Mor Chikin” so that they eat less beef. I began to raise questions like, “Does this actually make people want to eat Chick-fil-A?” and “What is the writing process when creating a Billboard?” Figure 1: “Eat Mor Chikin” billboard by Chick-fil-A Billboards are an advertising technique that has been used for a very long time and they do a great job marketing products. Think about it, a huge sign that is eye-catching and is seen by commuters everyday. The gigantic signs are seen by a lot of people, even if only for a few seconds, through out a day and its message is delivered to drivers. One of the reasons billboards have been such a great advertising tool is because they are strategically placed on roadways with large amounts of traffic. Billboards are meant to advertise something for a company to boost sales. Over the years, advertising has been able to “make or break” companies. Sometimes an advertising campaign can become the slogan of a company for years. With this in mind, companies put a lot of focus and research into billboards. Not only should the billboard catch the eye of potential customers but it should also make them want to buy products or services. The “Eat Mor Chikin” billboard is a perfect example of how a billboard should be made. It has a comedic appeal to people that is actually quite hilarious and well thought out. The billboard stands out amongst other billboards because it only contains one written phrase, but best of all people will actually remember the company from the billboard. Chik-fil-A was looking to appeal to hungry drivers looking for something to eat. Every time I pass a Chik-fil-A I think about their billboards and it makes me laugh. This reaction is exactly what advertisers are looking to give consumers who view billboards. For a billboard to be successful, companies have to put a lot of work into them. People are often hired just to create billboards. Keep in mind that no person reacts the same way to a billboard. There are many different things that come into play when thinking about how people perceive billboards. People from different places see things differently; something that is funny to one person may not think it is not funny at all. If a person does not understand the message of a billboard, whether it be a joke or something else, the whole message is not delivered. This makes the job of creating a billboard very tough. The bottom line is that the billboard must draw attention. This is why billboards are often seen with contrast colors and very large fonts. Visually billboards need to catch the eye of all passer byes or else they are not doing what they are made to do. This is pretty much the only requirement for a billboard. Companies have made billboards so that they go beyond this because they have realized how important advertising is to them. The use of billboards in the food industry is very popular. They are often seen on highways saying which exit to take to get there or in cities saying which street they are on. Big fast food companies throw their new Double Stuffed Chocolate Dorito burrito and make it look like the last thing you want to eat for the rest of your life. Just seeing a billboard with food on it can make people hungry and this means the billboard is working its advertising magic. The reason food is so successful on billboards is because driving is boring and when you are bored you want to eat. I have seen food billboards work very well first hand on my many long highway adventures. I recall a time when my family was driving back home from a family trip, when my dad came across a Cracker Barrel billboard. On the billboard were golden biscuits covered in thick gravy. In response to the billboard, my dad quickly pulled into the right lane to make the exit to Cracker Barrel. Billboards have helped the fast food industry grow over the years. There are many ways that billboards deliver their message. Billboards can span from being comedic to being sad, there are also plenty of billboards that are purely business. The approach companies take up when creating billboards is how they want to be perceived by the general public. There are many things that need to be done during the creating of a billboard. Most companies have an advertising branch. There the ideas for billboards are created. The branch figures out an advertising campaign that they can agree will be a good representation of the company and that has potential to boost sales. The branch is constantly making pitches for new advertisement campaigns. Once one is chosen, billboards are put up along with commercials and online advertisements. Billboards are placed in places where many people see them; this is the point of a billboard. So it makes sense that billboards are located in areas where there is a lot of people. People who live in urban areas are very used to billboards because they live in an area where billboards are everywhere. A person living in a rural area could have no idea what a billboard is because they might never have seen one. This is because billboards thrive on the amount of people view them. The life of a billboard correlates directly with America’s capitalistic society. Advertising billboards are made to increase revenue. There are other billboards that I have seen that push other social agendas, but for the most part billboards are used to put more money in a company’s hand. Creators of billboards strive to be ahead of the curve with advertising tactics and never want to create something that is not up to date with today’s consumerist culture. This type of capitalist culture creates the perfect outlet for billboards. In fact, I believe that people want to and enjoy viewing billboards. I know I do. Everything about a billboard is thought out before it is created. A company creating a billboard plans out its concept before anything. Often times companies hire writers and graphic designers to maximize the billboard’s potential. When creating a billboard the main thought is how will the public perceive this. The audience is the most important to keep in mind during the creation of billboards. As all advertising strategies do, putting up a billboard takes a great amount of commitment from a company. No one is going to put up a billboard they are not sure will make money. Billboards are made for consumers. This is because billboards are made to increase revenue for a company. The types of people billboards attract are people who make purchases on impulses or people who have money to spend. Billboards don’t have as great an effect on people who are not in good financial standing. The message of a billboard is delivered in high traffic areas like cities and big highways. Companies do this on purpose so that more people will see their advertisement, making the most out of their investment. Before companies even put up the billboard they have to find a good location. They want to make sure that they’re billboard has maximum visibility and is seen by a large amount of people. A billboard that I often see is one with large letters saying “YOUR AD HERE” with a number to go along with it. I reference this billboard because it perfectly breaks down a billboard. First, it has the bold letters advertising “YOUR AD HERE”. This automatically draws peoples’ attention. It is followed by a telephone number that people can contact to put their advertisement on the billboard. The billboard advertises putting up an advertisement by advertising itself. It blows my mind how these billboards work because they seem so simple but they are very well planned. The billboard attracts companies attention by showing how well it advertises. Figure 2: “Your Ad Here” billboard In comparison to other advertising methods, Billboards stand out. Unlike any online advertisement you cannot exit out of a billboard like you can a pop up ad. You see billboards whether you like it or not because they are just so big and just so there. Billboards are very similar to television commercials in that we see them whether we want to or not and they have some type of message in them. Most importantly billboards gave advertising more personality. Companies are able to show the general public what they are about through billboards, which is something they were not able to do before. The billboard allows a company to bring out a creative side that is rarely seen from companies. Every time you look a one of those big bright signs on the highway, remember everything that goes into them and what they can do for a company. If you think about that you will understand my interest in billboards. I don’t think my interest in billboards will ever fade, who knows maybe one day I will make a billboard of my own, but until than I’ll just keep looking up at the big advertisements on a stick. Heon, Laura Steward., Peggy Diggs, and Joseph Thompson. Billboard: Art on the Road: A Retrospective Exhibition of Artists' Billboards of the Last 30 Years. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 1999. Print.