Why billboards and outdoor ads are booming in a smartphone age
Bigger, smarter outdoor ads mean more relevant advertising that makes us look up from our phones
Netflix produces content, namely billions of dollars worth of documentaries, series, and cooking shows every year. But, like any tech firm, it’s also heavily invested in advertising, promotion, and market research.
When the company was looking to attract new writers, directors, and actors interested in pitching ideas and working for the site, it had plenty of options. But the company decided a $150 million billboard buy on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles was the best way to go. “In the entertainment capital of the world—where your waitress could be producing a movie—Netflix chose to buy billboards,” Nancy Fletcher, the president and CEO of the Outdoor Advertising Association of America, told Advertising Week.
In a smartphone world, the biggest screens still matter
Factor in location and contextual area data, industry advocates say, and you have ads with actual relevance to people’s daily life. Today, four of the 10 largest spenders on billboards are techfirms (Apple, Google, Amazon, and Netflix).
China’s Alibaba spent $2.2 billion on Focus Media, a Shanghai-based company, as part of a “New Retail” push, an offline-to-online strategy meant to capture the attention of the Chinese middle class.