Outdoor billboards in Los Angeles hold a special place for Hollywood. Such outdoor advertising signage is sometimes almost personal with the industry talking to the broader industry and is supercharged in awards season touting talent, movies and TV shows for kudos.
“Many Hollywood advertisers view outdoor as a ‘reminder’ medium, playing a supportive role in campaigns that allocate more money to other media,” says a Variety story in 2016 by Robert Marich. “One executive says that a film with a marketing budget of $25 million will typically spend $250,000 on outdoor advertising in L.A.” Marich is the author of “Marketing to Moviegoers.”
Entertainment marketers are big buyers of billboards nationally, since they are a cost-effective medium getting wide circulation and useful to introduce a new movie or TV show in a simple, one-frame message. Sometimes billboards originate special sub-campaigns for movies. In Los Angeles, their importance is magnified as Hollywood workers are the electorate for many film and TV honors. Also, Hollywood companies are known concentrate ads around their business offices to inspire employees and block out rivals.
Also, workers get the feeling their projects are getting big marketing pushes if the landscape is dotted with their employers’ projects, even those L.A. blllboards are strictly local media.
Cost-effective stems from L.A. prices ranging from $3,500/month at the low end to $25,000/month in prime locations, such as the Hollywood haunt of West Los Angeles. That’s the rate in 2016 when the Variety story is published. The “billboard canyon” along one stretch of Sunset Blvd. is particularly rich. Prices rise in awards season, which piles on a new set of buyers.
The Variety article says that competition for space is fierce. “Fall is a huge issue for everyone in the entertainment community in terms of getting space, because a lot of people are grandfathered in during that time period, and there isn’t enough inventory to go around,” the article quotes Stephanie Gibbons, president of marketing, digital media and on-air promotions at FX Networks.
Says the third edition of academic/business book “Marketing to Moviegoers”: “Outdoor billboards and other out-of-home advertising methods generally are effective in reaching an urban in-city audience because this population is geographically concentrated. A fringe benefit is that out-of-home signage that doesn’t get replaced quickly (which happens when there isn’t another advertiser waiting in line) helps promote the DVD and online release of the same film.”
One marketer explains that he likes to buy billboards for kids movies, because when children see them on the road, “They can immediately nag their parents while they are driving.”
text: Related content:
Leave a Reply