People are going to ballparks to enjoy baseball in record numbers these days, and as the fan bases continue to grow, so too do the advertising opportunities. Out-of-home advertising is thriving in the sports world, especially when it comes to baseball. With more home games than many other sports, your product or service gets unrivaled visibility in a number of unique strategies.

What Kind of Audience is Exposed to this form of OOH Advertising?

With each new game, your product or service is exposed to a varied audience. Fans look at the scoreboard many times per inning for a number of reasons, and with your digital advertisement on the screen next to a player’s name or set of statistics, those fans will be exposed to your brand numerous times.

That consistent exposure is one of the key aspects to this type of out-of-home advertising. Even in Minor League Baseball, the results are evident, as loyal fans see scoreboard advertisements on a regular basis and even associate them with the team itself.

Where to Find Digital Scoreboard Advertising Opportunities

An alternative media agency can help connect you with an asset owner in your desired DMA. Most alternative media asset owners have multiple assets available in numerous DMAs, so you are likely to find a digital scoreboard opportunity that is a good fit for your advertising message and target audience.

Alternative Advertising Strategies with a Minor League Baseball Jumbotron

One of the most enticing benefits of choosing to utilize digital scoreboard advertising is that your product does not have to be advertised in a traditional format. On a Minor League Baseball Jumbotron – and on scoreboards in all sports venues – you will certainly see traditional billboard and stationary advertising. However, certain alternative media strategies allow your brand a number of options when choosing to advertise at a sporting event.

These options include commercial spots and trailers before the game and between innings, sponsorship of trivia and other “between-innings” games, league highlights and scores, and more – all initiated by a public address announcer calling every fan’s attention to the scoreboard. At that point, your brand will be visible to nearly every person in the park.

With this form of digital advertising, you will be consistently expanding your brand’s presence to unique audiences. No game will be the same with this OOH advertising strategy, as your brand’s influence will be felt by a large and brand-new group of people each and every night.

Investing the money in an ad on a Minor League Baseball Jumbotron – whether it is a traditional ad or a sponsorship of a video, contest, or game on the scoreboard – allows your brand to be exposed to a varied audience, tapping into multiple demographics while being part of one of the fastest-growing out-of-home advertising strategies.

Advertising signs can often be seen to bubble and degrade over time with the result that the sign looks unprofessional. The sign then does not convey the right marketing message and creates a poor impression. This is mostly due to the problem of outgassing or the release of gases from the materials. By understanding the surface of the sign and the type of vinyl film being used you can avoid these problems and have a long lasting sign that is visually appealing.

Outgassing is a common problem when creating advertising signs. A typical scenario could be if you have an acrylic sign that is blistering or bubbling – acrylic suppliers claiming their acrylic doesn’t outgas and sign vinyl suppliers say that it isn’t their fault, the acrylic outgassed. It is a natural affect of the production process of many surfaces including plastics, paints, vinyl coverings, leather and PVCs to name a few.

An easy explanation is that a form of outgassing can be seen in motor vehicles. A new car can be left in the sun and you will find an oily residue build up on the windows and windscreen. This is a result of the release of gases from the vinyl material in the car being deposited onto glass surfaces.

As with most advertising sign creation, knowing the materials you are going to use and preparing the surfaces correctly will help you avoid any outgassing issues and achieve a quality result.

The surface or substrate you will be using is the first to be analysed. If the surface is old, then there is a good chance that any outgassing has finished. Newer surfaces such as the panels of a new motor vehicle, a sign in a foyer, display systems including portable display stands then your choice of vinyl material becomes most important. You can avoid outgassing issues by choosing a vinyl film that is porous enough to allow the gases to pass through. The following list of products is from most to least porosity:
Cast Vinyl

Polymeric Vinyl

Monomeric VinylFor each of these you should not have too many issues, however, quite often in the printing process you need to layer vinyl over each other to get the desired effect. Obviously, this will decrease the ability to release gas from under the vinyl. Care should still be taken therefore when layering.

Polyester and polypropylene films are not porous. The classic example of using these products is a sign with a mirror chrome finish on a black acrylic material. Even if the best quality products are used, it cannot be guaranteed that outgassing will not occur. Another example is where a gold or silver window film is put on a window. Unless the window has been thoroughly cleaned and dried when the window gets hot, the water trapped under the vinyl material will become gas and you will have a bubbling affect.

Whenever a sign is being developed, preparation is the key:
Firstly know the characteristics of the surface you are using, particularly as it relates to outgassing. Even painted surfaces may cause issues, particularly if using water based paints. You will need to allow them to cure properly, best over 7 days or more before applying any vinyl.

Secondly choose the most appropriate sign vinyl film for that surface, application and the time you want the sign to last. Often the cost is a determining factor of the type of film used. Cast film is the most expensive, but is also the most porous and is likely to have a longer life expectancy than other films. Your choice of film can be guided by how long you require the sign to last. However, the reality is that material costs are relatively insignificant in making a sign. The major cost is in the labour to create the sign. For example, if a Calendared vinyl contributes 10% of the total cost of the sign, using Cast vinyl will contribute about 5% more. The benefit is however a longer lasting sign and one that is unlikely to give you any issues with outgassing

This is the third article in a series of the history of advertising and marketing. We pick up the story from when John E. Kennedy exited Lord and Thomas leaving Albert Lasker with the monumental task of replacing him.

1908 Kennedy must have been a hard act to follow.

But Lasker did replace him with a man who made an even greater overall contribution to the advertising world than Kennedy did.

Kennedys replacement was called Claude C. Hopkins.

And what a true pioneer he proved to be.

Hes the man who inaugurated free sampling, risk-free trials, money-back guarantees, market testing, and much more.

Hopkins agreed with Kennedy on the Salesmanship on Paper philosophy, but where Kennedy was a one idea man, Hopkins had many ideas.

Hopkins reckoned that just placing ads and seeing what happened was futile. Pure guesswork. He wanted to measure everything that he did.

And we should all be glad that he did.

Hopkins wrote only two books but both were classics. His first: Scientific Advertising written in 1923 contained manyof his secrets that he found with his testing techniques. These secrets are still as valid today.

His second book, written in 1927, was an autobiography called: My Life in Advertising. Many regard this as the best advertising book ever written.

All top marketers regard Hopkins first book as their copywriting how-to bible.

And the late advertising great, David Ogilvy, had this to say about Scientific Advertising: Nobody should be allowed to have anything to do with advertising until he has read Scientific Advertising seven times it completely changed my life.

Jay Abraham, known as Americas #1 marketing wizard, had this to say: Claude Hopkins is the master of them all. His influence has easily added over $6m to my personal income..and still counting.

Hopkins created ad campaigns for many major US companies that are still going strong today. Companies such as Palmolive, Pepsodent, and Quaker Oats.

One of his secret strategies for creating more turnover for his clients was that of pre-emptive strikes.

By this strategy, he used to tell a story of how things were done in an industry and thus educate the customers. Any competitor could have told the same story but didn’t. and whoever did so first, gained the edge.

Hopkins stated in his books that a large part of advertising done at the time was based on the concept of: “Buy My Product” or “Come into My Store.” Lots of advertisers today make this same mistake. Are you one of them?

Customers are not fooled by this. They want to know: “What’s in it for me?”

Hopkins knew this and used this psychology to grow Van Camp’s pork and bean business. After his research, Hopkins found that 94% of housewives were baking their own beans at home and only 6% were buying canned beans.

But Hopkins realized that everybody advertising canned beans merely stated: “Buy My Brand.” Nobody explained what the benefit of their product was.

Advertising requires a huge investment. How much money an organization is willing to spend to promote their campaigns will also affect how they will be able to achieve their advertising objectives. Here are some of the methods or approaches to setting an advertising budget:

1. Percentage of Sales

This method or approach is based on a percentage of previous sales or a percentage of predicted sales. This works best for companies with a stable and predictable sales pattern. But this approach tends to assume that the sales are directly related to advertising which is not the case. There are a lot of other elements and factors that will also affect the sales. And this will also mean that your advertising budget may not be appropriate to the amount of sales promotion your business needs.

2. Based on Tasks

This approach relates the expenses to the specific Marketing and Advertising activities that make up Advertising Campaigns. It involves listing down who it is that the ad needs to reach, how often should the business advertise, what medium is more effective in reaching the target audience, and how much will it cost. The method is about creating a budget that will allow the business to meet their particular objectives.

3. What is Affordable

Most small companies use this approach wherein they only spend what they can to avail of an Effective Advertising. Its understandable that such small companies may not have a lot of profits to sacrifice in order to advertise. But since there is no attempt to match goals with advertising, a large amount of money could be wasted. It is when market is especially bad or sales are low, that is the time to invest greatly on promoting your products and services.

4. Best Guess

A lot of companies who are new to Advertising and Marketing may lack the knowledge on how much is needed to invest in advertising in order to achieve their goals and objectives. What happens most of the time is that marketers would tend to rely on their best guess or judgment on what their advertising budget should be. There are also instances wherein marketers would follow a competitors budget. Doing so will only prevent the business to have that competitive advantage in increasing their sales.

Some methods and approaches may be easier for some companies but that does not mean it will be effective. Also, budgets that work for others does not mean that it will work for you. It is important to strategize and analyze which approach matches your goals and objectives. Out of Home Media Owners like SMRT Media have different rates that will be able to suit any budget for Advertising Campaigns make possible.

An advertising media plays a significant role while positioning the brand amongst target groups. It is through the very advertising channel or medium that customers access the brand message and are motivated to buy or adopt the product. A strong channel of advertising provides a rich impact about the brand on TGs mind while a poor advertising channel fails to provide the targeted impact amongst target groups. While choosing or deciding on the channel of brand communication, the advertiser should thoroughly understand the objective of the campaign and accordingly choose the medium or channel of advertising.

In todays article, let us take a look at some means of advertising implemented by brand owners to advertise their brands amongst customers and also find out how each and every medium is important to effectively convey the brand message to target customers.

Television Media

Television advertising i.e. a promotion campaign of a brand or service through a television channel or channels is one of the popular means of communicating any brand message to customers. Television Advertising has a major advantage as compared to other means of promotion. Enriched with audio-visual effect, customers love watching the various brand commercials that are telecast through the numerous television channels.

Radio Media

Radio Advertising is one of the cost-effective means of promoting a brand amongst customers. Radio advertising campaigns also provide a mass appeal as one can easily access the brand message through a radio channel. The rising number of FM channels over the years is an insinuation how radio advertising is still popular as one of the effective means of brand promotion.

Print Media

Print Advertising includes any form of brand message that is available in a written format. Brochures, fliers, pamphlets, leaflets, classifieds etc. are some forms of print advertising widely adopted and implemented by brand owners to advertise their products amongst target groups. Though there is a rising popularity of new age media, print ads are still effective means of brand communication which is why innumerable numbers of brand and business owners still launch various promotion campaigns through print media.

Outdoor Media

Outdoor Advertising is one of the conventional means of promoting a brand, business or service. Billboard advertising, hoarding ads, wall posters, paintings, kiosks ads etc. are some forms of outdoor advertising. Over the years, the induction of digital technology has brought about a drastic and dramatic change in the OOH domain. Providing a classy look about the brand in a larger than life format, an OOH media provides a strong brand appeal on customers mind.