Page 170 - 100 Great Marketing Ideas (100 Great Ideas)

81 ADS ON CARS

Cutting through advertising clutter is a perennial problem
for marketers. Most people avoid adverts unless they are looking
for something specific: people switch channels during TV adverts,
flip the pages of magazines to get past the ads, and talk through
advertising breaks on the radio.

There are many ideas for getting past this process, some of which
work well and others that simply irritate the paying customers—but
some of the best ones involve putting the message exactly where the
interested customers will see it.

The idea

Most people find driving an expensive necessity. There is little one can
do while driving except look at the other cars—which is not usually
all that interesting either. This does raise an opportunity, though.

Recently, several firms have appeared that can arrange to have private
cars liveried (decorated with advertising messages). The motorists
are paid a small amount for having their cars liveried, and naturally
this helps defray the costs of motoring. Of course, the drivers are
allowed to choose the companies—it would hardly be appropriate
for a vegetarian to advertise McDonald’s—but in general there are
few problems of this nature.

The key advantage for the advertiser is that the cars will be seen
in traffic, in parking spaces, at golf clubs, and so forth: sometimes
this is a way of reaching people who would otherwise be difficult or
impossible to contact any other way.

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