Thursday + Gregory Huffstutter = The Ad Man Answers
Q: I’ve created a video commercial for my book launch, but I can’t afford to run it on TV or online… are there any other options?
A: The sinking price of flat-panel LCD and plasma displays has fueled a new category of advertising…. place-based video.
Anywhere that people congregate, wait, or recreate is a potential venue for delivering advertising messages. For example:
This is by no means a complete list. And only having dealings with a few of the linked vendors, the Ad Man can’t guarantee the legitimacy of all the above companies. A final caveat, some of the video networks are regional instead of national, so if one intrigues you, be sure to check their availability of video screens in your area.
Pros of place-based video ads
- Allows you to repurpose existing video creative
- Sight, motion, and in some cases, audio. Typical out-of-home advertising is static (like a freeway billboard) and has a short read time
- More cost effective than buying over-the-air TV or cable
- High frequency… ads are usually run multiple times per hour
- Can be extremely targeted to a particular demographic. If you wrote a mystery novel about a body-building detective, what better place to reach those kinds of people than video screens inside health clubs?
Cons of place-based video ads
- The world is a noisy, distracting place. So even if your commercial runs a few feet away from your potential consumer, their eyes and ears could be paying attention to something else
- Getting traffic estimates (i.e. how many people have the opportunity to view your message on a daily/monthly basis) for out-of-home media is difficult and sometimes provided by unaccredited sources
- Format variability. Some vendors will only accept 15-second unit lengths, some don’t include audio, and some video screens have non-traditional aspect ratios. Legitimate vendors should help you convert your commercial into something they can use without charging extra fees
- You have to share time with other content and the frequency of your message can be an issue. If your commercial runs once every other hour, a high percentage of daily traffic will pass by without ever having a chance to see your message. But if your message runs every three minutes, someone forced to watch the same spot over and over – like in a dental waiting room – will start getting pissed
The best use of this medium is when you’re able to marry your message with the location, especially if it’s close to a purchase decision.
Let’s say you wrote a thriller about a terrorist attack on the US oil reserves, why not run a short commercial on video screens built into gas station pumps (“In a world where gas is $25 a gallon…”)? And if your publisher is able to place your book at the service station cash registers, now you’ve closed the loop.
Many books have themes that can dovetail with out-of-home video executions. While putting together a media plan for Ronald Cutler, author of “The Secret Scroll”, the Ad Man searched the web for the Dead Sea Scrolls and found they were exhibiting at the San Diego Natural History Museum.
The Ad Man called the museum’s marketing/PR director and found that, lo and behold, the museum had interior lobby screens that runs a video loop about upcoming museum events. When asked about adding a :30s commercial to their loop, the marketing director said: “I don’t know if the museum would approve… but how much are you willing to pay?”
Good question. How much should these video ads cost? In Ad Man Answers #4, we discussed different CPMs per media type.
Traditional out-of-home typically has CPMs between $1-$5. CPMs for television are usually in the neighborhood of $20. Place-based video is a hybrid of these two… more valuable than a static poster on the side of a bus, but less valuable than a TV commercial airing to millions of people watching A&E in the quiet of their homes. For place-based video, you should shoot for CPMs in the $5-$10 range.
Let’s say you’re buying commercials on closed-circuit video monitors inside a neighborhood mall that has a daily foot traffic of 32,000 people, you should expect to pay between $160-$320 per day ($5-$10 CPM).
But here’s the catch… when asking that mall advertising representative about pricing and traffic counts, make sure you’re only paying for foot traffic that has the opportunity to see your ad. Remember, video ads are rotated in-between other content – like trivia questions or weather reports – whereas static signage gets shown to everyone equally. So if they show you a study that says 32,000 people pass through their mall every day, try to find out the average shopper’s visit length. If their average visitor only spends 15 minutes inside the mall, and your commercial runs on the closed circuit screens once an hour, then 75% of their daily visitors won't even get a chance to see your commercial. So the mall should really discount their asking price to $40-80 per day.
Now that’s the kind of media buy that even an author can afford…
Gregory Huffstutter has been punching Ad Agency timecards for the past decade, working on accounts like McDonald's, KIA Motors, and the San Diego Padres. He recently finished his first mystery, KATZ CRADLE. The first 100 pages of his novel are linked here. For general advertising questions, leave a comment or send e-mail to katz @ gregoryhuffstutter dot com with 'Ask The Ad Man' in the subject line.
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