Varun B. Kumar
One of the old forms of advertising, evolution started as early as in 1830s when salespersons used to paint advertisements on their sales wagons and since then it has evolved to huge banners being put up covering whole of bus exteriors. Though it used to prove effective earlier but now it is losing its sheen and here I give a primer WHY? Here I’ll be discussing a few questions.
To what can this lack of performance be attributed? Is the image of transit advertising tarnished? Are the unique benefits of transit advertising unclear? Is the product offering not compelling? Are sales efforts falling short?
The purpose of my study was to 1) Understand advertising decision makers’ perceptions of transit advertising 2) Understand the direct impact of the concerned form on consumers 3) Come up with suggestions to improve the image. To achieve this, a quantitative study of common man (the consumer), was conducted as well as interviews with marketing representatives of transit agencies and sales contractors was conducted. What follows is a summary of findings, conclusions and recommendations.
Where do you advertise when you want to reach everybody? Transit advertising - placement of print ads on buses and other vehicles and in bus shelters and train stations--is an important medium for reaching an audience of all ages, backgrounds and incomes. You are not just addressing riders with these "moving billboards." You are reaching families and professionals in their vehicles, students shopping or right on campus, and tourists finding their way around town.
Why use transit advertising?
· You can't zap it.
· You can't ignore it.
· It can't be turned off like television.
· It reaches drivers and passengers no matter what radio stations they're listening to.
· The large, colorful, innovative designs demand attention.
· You have exclusivity in your space.
· It delivers a varied audience.
· It offers flexibility of ad size and location.
Transit is all set to grow, but still it lacks credibility and distinctiveness in today’s advertising market place
Market conditions and the marketers suggest that transit is all set to grow. The organizations outlook is shifting from spending millions of dollars on traditional advertising methods to using more customer sensitive and non-traditional advertising methods. In one of the interviews it came out that out-of-home media advertising is set to grow the most. And the reason for the form to grow is that the benefits offered by transit totally align with the needs of advertisers, at top being “up close and personal” with the consumer.
However to be fully competitive with the already existing billboards, newspapers, the Internet and other being developed forms transit has a long way to go. The quantitative study of 200 randomly picked consumers and 23 personally conducted interviews indicated to the following obstacles to transit advertising:
1) Transit agencies find it hard to grow and sometimes even sustain in the hard competition
2) It does not generate enough interest and enthusiasm either among advertisers or consumers
3) The overall level of satisfaction with transit media is low
4) The benefits its target audience perceives is neither highly motivating nor distinct from billboards
Key Finding: Transit advertising’s greatest strength is reaching captive audiences; however, it is perceived weaker in most objectives when compared to billboards
Key Finding: Attitude and habits concerning transit media are very indifferent among the media representatives
Next I give the most important aspect of the survey, “The image perceptions of transit advertising.” (Among consumers and representatives both combined)
Another reason for loss of shine is that a majority believed that transit does not deliver reliably, target well or even offer a good value. A misconception as far as I believe but I’m not the market and what they say has to be believed and taken as right. Only half of the ones surveyed believed that transit can be used to target specific areas or demographic groups. Even though a majority believed that it can’t be avoided, but then only 1/5th of the total respondents believed that transit delivered ROI. Another interesting thing that came to my notice was that although the advertisers were very comfortable in referring or recommending transit to their customers but the perceptions that they had about transit media were not positive.
Now when it comes to the consumers the story was almost similar here as well. Again the same trend followed:
· Though the consumers noticed such ads, majority in trains and buses, but they said that it does not have any major impact on their decisions of whether to or not to buy.
· Only 64 of 200 believed that transit has an impact.
· The fact stated by the representatives about sales rep and ROI was proved right when a mind boggling 72% of the respondents said that they never purchased anything and don’t even plan to buy as an impact of these adverts.
· The ROI which was generated somehow ended up low because the worth of purchases made due to transit were majorly below a thousand rupees, not keeping up to the investment made by the company.
· According to consumers as well the effectiveness of these adverts lagged in various areas
Developing new forms and working on innovative ideas for advertising is one thing but seeing an age old form of advertising losing its sheen and shine for just a misconception is different, practically speaking “unfair.” So following are a list of suggestions I feel can help in reviving the image of transit advertising
Recommendation #1: Reposition transit advertising to differentiate it from billboards, elevate its importance, and update its image.
Now perception plays an important role in transforming the image. If the transit positioned among its audience as something that surrounds consumers and not the product it will become a critical part of daily exposure experience. Such a positioning will differentiate, elevate and update transit on the whole.
Recommendation #2: Promote transit media both among the advertisers and the consumers
The need to do this on both ends arises because:
· Advertisers don’t see transit as a beneficial option,
And,
· Customers don’t believe in what the advertisers show through transit
Recommendation #3: Develop a credible measurement system for the transit in particular
Now, this one was suggested to me by a journalism student. What he told was, that the advertisers don’t believe in using transit as a media for advertising their product because they have no idea about its effectiveness, its reliability, its efficiency, and its value for money. So all these concerns will be addressed if and only once when transit becomes measurable.
Recommendation #4: Address image and product deficiencies of transit media
Now this has to be seen from two perspectives
1. Advertisers’ perception
a. Transit media are not clean
b. Have high production cost
2. Customers’ perception
a. Don’t grab attention like billboards and are not attractive
b. Don’t really portray the reality about the product
Now, these might not be able to provide transit media advertising a whole new outlook for both advertisers and customer but it’ll surely help to provide a much needed revamp.
