adminHarare City Council spokesperson Mr Lesley Gwindi said, “We are saying they (advertisers) have to change the game because they have been doing underhand dealings by not paying for the advertising space”.
Billboard advertising is one on the most effective ways used by companies to market products and services.
In Harare alone, several hundreds of them line up the streets in strategic positions where motorists, passengers and pedestrians have a clear view.
Billboards do have several advantages over other forms of advertising.
They are huge, eye-catching boards that any passerby is unlikely to miss. Because they are erected where large volumes of people pass through, billboards are guaranteed large and diverse audience.
Visual information in larger-than-life size has a high chance of creating a strong and immediate effect on passersby.
It is however regrettable that advertisers forget that the primary targets for the information they put up are people driving past. Advertisers are sometimes guilty of providing too much information that, for a motorist with only a few seconds to read and process, may be impossible to digest.
In fact, according to market research, motorists and their passengers have only between two and three seconds to look at a billboard and make sense of the presentation on it.
Motorists are almost always in motion when they view billboard messages, therefore any text written on them must be large and legible enough for easily reading. Paragraphs of text and a dozen or more images are way too much information, unless the billboard is situated next to a traffic light where some motorists may wait for the green light for up to a minute.
The whole purpose of having a big board to present information is not to squeeze in every bit of data there is to know about a product or service, it is to stimulate the target market with as little as possible in an enlarged or enhanced format.
Perhaps when the city council’s proposals become law and it becomes more difficult for advertisers to find space, more effort is directed towards making information presentation more effective.
One example of ineffective advertising is found at the traffic lights near Southerton police station.
The emphasis of the billboard is all about stopping domestic violence, yet the advertiser found it appropriate to use an image of a goalkeeper in action and that of a ‘celebrity’ CAPS United fan known for exaggeration of emotions, with the words ‘game over’ louder than any other text on it.
How is it ‘game over’ when, from the composition the goalkeeper is obviously still playing the game?
Of course a goalkeeper can be used as a metaphorical representation symbolising ‘stopping’ something from happening, the link is not immediately clear.
Simply ‘substituting’ the goalie with battered and bruised person instantaneously links the visuals with textual inferences such that the connection is all too apparent.
Companies that erect billboards often provide visual presentations that have a relatively long shelf-life.
This is because it takes a lot of time, energy and money to constantly change billboard ads.
This makes billboard advertising less conducive to businesses that frequently change their advertising campaigns on a weekly or monthly basis.
Billboard advertising is better suited for businesses with a consistent product or service than for temporary specials and sales.
This makes it even more important for the advertisers or the agencies doing work on their behalf to apply themselves better when developing concepts so that whatever they put up on the roadside or on CBD buildings maintains a level of ‘freshness’ and appeal for a long period of time.
Presently, it appears as if most advertising agencies are more concerned with convincing their client’s top brass and earning their thousands than preparing a billboard design that appeals to the general public.
How else can we explain the terribly pixilated images, the overtly substandard work in some corners, the small prints or heaps of text impossible to comprehend in a few seconds, or the poor quality material used on the billboards?
Some of the inks used to print on billboards are negatively affected by sun rays or rain and become unreadable only a month or two after erection.
All this means that someone or some people are getting money that they do not deserve.
Advertisers may not know it, but some of their presentations are real eyesores to the public they ironically intend to attract.
And because they are visible to all seven days a week and 24 hours a day, chances are that they are achieving exactly the opposite of their original intention.
Billboards are put up on the roads where everyone that looks at them is passing through on their way to another place.
No one has time to sit around and ponder at their meanings and objectives.
For advertisers, it is better to get straight to the point and say nothing more.
leeroy