Missouri’s Lee’s Summit R-7 School District is weighing advertising on school buses as a revenue generator. The move would require passing enabling legislation by the Missouri General Assembly, and Rep. Mike Kelley, R-Lamar, has filed that bill.
Keith Asel, a regional bank president and member of an education funding subcommittee, told the Lee’s Summit Journal that “Seventeen states currently permit advertising on school buses,” with a typical revenue of between $2,500 and $5,000 per bus per year. The Colorado Springs, Colo. school district generates $40,000 a year from bus ads, but Summit R-7 expects to generate $3,750 from each of 147 buses, for around $550,000 per year.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie signed legislation a year ago, joining Arizona, Colorado, new Mexico, Tennessee and Texas, among other states that allow advertising. Alpha Media President Michael Beauchamp at the time told USA Today that his firm managed advertising on 3,000 school buses in 27 districts in Texas and Arizona. The firm and school districts generally avoided "beer, tobacco, politics, churches, anything sexual in nature." The Medford, N.J., school board policy prohibits bars, drug companies and religious organizations. As Asel observed, likely advertisers for Lee’s Summit are bank or insurance companies supporting education, with image ads.
Still, it’s a “lousy way to raise money,” complains Director Susan Linn of the Boston-based Campaign for a Commercial-free Childhood. Advertising in schools and on school property “undermines parents who are trying to limit commercialism” in a child’s life. And she points out that the $40,000 Colorado Springs pulls in amounts to less than $1 a student, and falls far short of expectations. Still—$40,000 is a bargain for outdoor advertisers and a boon to a school district.
QR Codes in Traditional Ads Lure “Curious Consumers”
About half of all smart phone users have, at least once, scanned a QR code, reports eMarketer. But are they effective as an advertising vehicle?
Perhaps. A full 41% of respondents in a survey by research firm Chadwick Martin Bailey scanned a QR code to get more information about a company, product or event. Another 18% used it to find discounts, but only 6% used the code to buy something. The strongest purpose is that the smart phone user was simply curious what the QR code would do.
On the plus side, of those who regularly scan QR codes, 18% were moved to purchase. And consumer awareness of QR codes is on the rise, with eight out of 10 aware of them. Finally, consumers scan those QR codes from advertisements, most frequently from print advertisements in magazines, at 35%; billboards and signs at 11%, and direct mailers at another 11%.
Media Measurement an Illusion, Says Ad Research Foundation CEO
“What does it mean that Coke has 36 million Facebook followers?” blogged Advertising Research Foundation CEO Bob Barocci on the AdAge site. Barocci described the oft-heard complaint that digital metrics are hard to quantify; but he called the simpler days of ad metrics a myth. Twenty years ago, “a brand looked bigger to the consumer if you were in two media.” A company then might enjoy a good score on 24-hour aided recall, but even then, major advertisers were reluctant to trace market share gains to that recall. “No cause and effect then…as now.”
Now the CMO is tasked with dividing ad spend among far more numerous platforms, and dealing with their complexities. The global research director of Kraft Foods described the dilemma to brand advertisers as this: which five of 100 or more touch points that influence consumers should he buy? Mobile phones promise more exposures, but are also driving discounting; should a CMO thus avoid the burgeoning platform? In social media, is recall more or less valuable than likability? “With all the data we have these days, I think we should be finding answers to some of these questions,” wrote Barocci, “But we're not.”
Barocci credits Google with putting significant resources toward analytics, with initiatives like its Advertising Format Impact project to measure the impact of multiple video formats on multiple platforms. Barocci described the Foundation’s multisponsor Arrowhead Project, with a mission to answer the question “What ideas do people get from digital/social media when making a purchase?” The project focuses upon three test categories which vary in length of the consumer purchase process; consumer packaged goods, which are short-term; smart phones, being mid-term; and automobiles, a long-term decision. ARF will present its findings at its March Re:think conference.
Research: Social Media No Substitute for Offline Ads
Offline channels still hold the reins in brand and product awareness, reports eMarketer, despite the talk of “viral marketing” and social media “influencers. eMarketer was quoting market research by AYTM, which found that 57.8% of US Facebook users had not any brand in a status updates as of October 2011. Similarly, 61.3% of Twitter users had never “tweeted” about a brand. Of those consumers who claimed to hear frequently about new brands, only 6.5% did so frequently, and 26% reported they never heard of new brands through social media.
Where they did hear about new brands, products and services: TV, radio, and offline print outlets. Sixteen percent did so “most frequently,” 34.9% did so often, 31.8% sometimes, 13% rarely, 4.2% never.
Out-Of-Home Exposures: Parking Garages High on Recall, Low on CPM
Media Life in its series on out-of-home venues compiled some compelling facts about advertising in parking facilities, which number around 7,000 in the U.S. Garages have attracted some heavyweight advertisers, including Fox, AAA, adidas, Johnson & Johnson and Transitions Optical. The venue favors automotives, consumer packaged goods, entertainment, restaurants, pharmaceuticals and electronics. Among other findings:
• 7,031 parking lot and garage owners in the U.S. service 250 million vehicles per year for $8.2 billion in revenue;
• Ads on parking gate arms yielded a 37% unaided recall rate after one exposure, according to independent research;
• Cost-per-thousand exposures (CPMs) range between $8.50 and $12.50;
• Demographics vary, but in Minneapolis, the audience is is 54 percent female with a median income between $55,000 and $75,000.
A strong value proposition is finding the right parking facility—for example, one attached to a hospital, or a movie theatre. “Let's say you're a pharma advertiser,” Abcon Media’s VP of Sales and Marketing told Media Life. “You could be at a clinic or hospital. Then you can really hone in and customize your campaign." Typical formats are pole wraps, static signage and adhesive strips on the floor, over parking-spot lines.
Device’s Screen Size May Determine Conversion Likelihood
While search advertisers experience higher click-through-rates for mobile phone and tablet search campaigns than for desktop search campaigns (at 166% and 137% respectively) according to a November 2011 report from Macquarie Group, those clicks are less likely to convert to sales in a direct relationship to screen size. The report employed Efficient Frontier advertiser data. Efficient Frontier found that mobile conversion rates were at just 31% of the average desktop campaign’s, while tablet conversion rates were much more on par (96%). Meanwhile, the average cost-per-click (CPC) on mobile phone search campaigns was slightly higher (108%) than for desktop search campaigns, although CPCs for tablet campaigns were on average 85% of desktop search campaign CPCs.
Report: Social Media Grows 25%, Now 16% of All Online Time
The internet continues to grow at the fastest rate of any medium, at an average of 14.2% a year between 2010 and 2013. Display is the fastest-growing segment, growing by 16.4% a year, driven mainly by online video and social media, according to ZenithOptimedia, "Global Ad Expenditure to Return to Pre-recession Peak Level."
In the US, social media use has jumped 25% over the last year, and now accounts for 16% of all time spent online, and 34% of display impressions. Paid search is growing by 14.4% a year, but its growth is being slightly restrained by the shift in search behaviour from desktop to mobile devices, where costs are currently lower.
Television is the next fastest-growing medium, at 6.2% a year. It is also the largest contributor to global growth, accounting for 49% of new ad dollars between 2010 and 2013. Television’s share of the global ad market has risen steadily over time and shows no sign of reaching a plateau: it attracted 40.1% of spend in 2010, up from 37.3% in 2005, and we forecast it to attract 41.4% in 2013.
Television ad expenditure are forecast to grow by US$35.4 billion, from US$179.6 to US$215.0 billion between 2010 and 2013.
Chart: Top 10 at Domestic Film Box Office, Weekend of July 22-24, 2011
About this chart: Content in Rentrak Theatrical box office updates is produced and/or compiled by Rentrak Corporation and its Box Office Essentials theatrical box office data collection and analytical service.
Chart: Global Ad Spending Change, All Major Media, 2009-2013
About this chart: Source: ZenithOptimedia, "Global Ad Expenditure to Return to Pre-recession Peak Level," July 2011. ZenithOptimedia is a global media services agencies with 218 offices in 72 countries. ZenithOptimedia is part of Publicis Groupe the world’s third largest communications group, the world’s second largest media counsel and buying group, and a global leader in digital and healthcare communications. Advertising Expenditure Forecasts are published quarterly.
Chart: North American Advertising Expenditure, All Major Media, 2009-2013
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About this chart: Source: ZenithOptimedia, "Global Ad Expenditure to Return to Pre-recession Peak Level," July 2011. ZenithOptimedia is a global media services agencies with 218 offices in 72 countries. ZenithOptimedia is part of Publicis Groupe the world’s third largest communications group, the world’s second largest media counsel and buying group, and a global leader in digital and healthcare communications. Advertising Expenditure Forecasts are published quarterly.