Waste Of Ad Space

What do the billboard companies do when no one wants to buy space on their billboards?

Most of the time they just put up their phone number and the word "available," and or some stupid, but effective phrase like, "Look HERE!"















If a billboard is empty for long enough, they drop their rates, or maybe decide to run one of the God Speaks billboards.

What a waste.

Here is my idea. Billboard companies and any other similar companies, should start their own websites, kooky content based websites with kooky names. I would suggest teaming up with an established company with tons of content not yet fully exploited on the internet, i.e. The Bathroom Reader Institute.

Companies could sell advertising on these sites and have links to their own site.

Why does this make sense?

First of all, is much easier to sell advertising on a website, especially when the rates are based totally or partially on click throughs. Second of all, you might not make a huge profit off these internet ad sales, but you can probably at least offset the cost of printing placeholder ads. Third of all, the number of visitors to your site can be used as statistical proof of the effectiveness of your billboards. You can use these numbers to make future sales.

I know that billboards are about as old school as you can get in the advertising world, but they are still a big business (not meant to be a pun). If you work for one of these companies, go into your bosses office and tell him this idea. Yell it at him if you have to. Here is a good mantra to use at all the meetings and focus groups that will probably result from your initial suggestion: Let's STOP wasting that space.

P.S. I subscribed to Ideas By Chuck today, and it was amazing.

P.P.S. I made another appearance on TBTL hosted by Luke Burbank. Click here to hear me on the radio.