More than 50 pages longer than the previous edition, Sign Gallery 6 presents recentSigns of the Times competition winners, honorable mentions, and others in this expanded edition of electric ...
You don't have to be a CPA to understand their tiny CPM
Editor's Note:ST is extremely pleased to announce Bob Klausmeier as our new Moving Message columnist. Bob's career in the electronic message center industry spans a quarter century, and they're thrilled to present you his knowledge and experience. Bob would love to be contacted at Klausmeier@prodigy.net.
Never has there been a better time to sell electronic moving message signs. If you take nothing else away from this article, remember that.
You know the old expression, "Can't see the forest for the trees." I think many of us in the sign industry have fallen into that trap as it pertains to electronic advertising signs. We focus more on the sign and less on its advertising value. Perhaps it's time to step back and take a long, hard look at what we actually sell.
Of course, a moving display is a sign. But that sign is really just the physical manifestation of an advertising medium -- a powerful medium with an ever-increasing legitimacy as a promotional tool for a wide variety of businesses.
It's all about choice
Not long ago, businesses had few advertising choices. The traditional media of newspaper, radio and television dominated. Outdoor advertising could be three-dimensional, but it was static. After direct mail and magazine advertising, little else loomed. Those of us selling lamp message displays searched valiantly for quirky visionaries willing to branch out from the norm to try something different.
| Fig. 1: Media Dilution In the past decade, the number of players in any given medium has greatly increased. Consequently, the impact of advertising in any single entity has lost some of its value. |
|
| Medium | 1990-1997 % Change |
| Houses with cable TV | +187% |
| TV channels per household | +530% |
| Total radio stations | +53% |
| Consumer magazines | +198% |
| Daily newspapers | -13% |
Subsequently, however, the technology revolution steamrolled meteoric change into all of our lives. Central to that change has been a complete restructuring of the very concept of commercial communication. Today we have an unprecedented proliferation of communication vehicles. Virtually every medium has exploded with a plethora of new options. When you add to this chaos the impact of the Internet, the number of communications media focused at each consumer is staggering (Fig. 1).
Defeat media that compete
