Hoardings are one of the symbols of a modern civilized society. You just can’t escape them. Roadside hoardings are a great canvas for businesses to imprint their brand in the minds of audiences.
Hoardings vs. Billboards
We usually find advertisement hoardings by the side of major roads and overbridges, featuring an eye-catching graphic, pictures of products or models, or anything that grabs the attention of passersby. They feature a brand name and usually the contact details of the business. These advertisements are actually called “billboards”.
Apart from marketing purposes, direction hoardings could also be used to give directions to people, to help them find their way either on the road or inside the compounds of buildings. They can show directions to various neighborhoods, towns, cities or highways. There are also traffic hoardings for motorists that remind them of no parking zones and other traffic rules. Hoardings can also display safety information and, in the strictest sense of the term, are temporary fences placed around a construction site to prevent people from getting harmed. But even such fences are used for advertisements.
Erected in outdoor locations, billboards are metal, wooden, fiber, or electronic surfaces and usually rectangular in shape. We have talked about hoardings in a broad sense. Technically, many of the advertising hoardings we see are actually billboards. Hoardings serve the utilitarian purpose of safety. They are basically fences or temporary walls marking boundaries. It’s just that they are then used for advertising as well. Billboards are solely erected for advertising.
The Creativity of Billboards
Billboards offer an unlimited level of creativity. They have been around for long, but are evolving for the ultra-modern age we are living in. Previously, billboards used to feature giant text and an image. The text would usually be a quote. Later there came variations to this rule, with text length varying according to the creativity of the marketer. Sometimes, it would just be one eye-catching word to go with a thought-provoking image.
Now we have digital billboards that feature video playing. This gives greater possibility for imagination to work. There are also billboards with motion detection as well as augmented reality.
The Marketing Potential of Hoardings
A certain level of imagination can also transform hoardings into attractive brand engagement platforms. Hoardings keep construction or renovation sites safe from the public. However, these hoardings are also used to advertise what’s being constructed behind them. Whether it’s a shop, mall, hotel or any other business, they can be advertised on the hoardings so that the public is aware of the business that’s coming up. It builds the anticipation and could result in a massive footfall once the business opens. Alternatively, the hoarding could also advertise the real estate developer or construction firm that’s building the project. In any case, hoardings can build the brand, at no significant additional cost.
Sports Venue Hoardings
You can also find hoardings in sports venues, where they surround the pitch. We often see these hoardings on television during NHL, NBA and soccer games. Companies can pay the stadium management to get their brand on these hoardings. This could give great exposure to brands since they not only have people in the stadium watching the games, but also people gluing to the TV screen each day to watch their favorite sports leagues. These displays may not be as massive as billboards, but they certainly have a tremendous marketing potential.
The Innovation of Pole Kiosks
We can’t end this discussion without mentioning an innovation that’s a variation of hoardings or billboards – pole kiosks. Pole kiosks are small panels affixed to electric poles by the roadside on which businesses can advertise their brands or products. A single pole kiosk may not make much of an impact, so marketers normally place multiple pole kiosks – one for each adjacent pole.
As motorists pass by, seeing the same ad constantly imbibes the brand in their minds. Thanks to the frequency at which viewers observe the ad, they are likely to remember it for long despite the surface area of each kiosk being quite small. Pole kiosks are set up back to back for short distances, ensuring repeated exposure.
Experienced advertising companies in Kerala have tons of creativity and resources to combine with their market research and come up with the right ad creative to suit the needs of any type of business.