With the emphasis on ad-blocking, where can you advertise?
How do you reach customers in a media-saturated age? Getting your marketing message through to customers is getting increasingly difficult, especially at home. Internet devices are overloaded with a surfeit of marketing messages. Television watchers are skipping commercials with their TiVo and DVR. Ad-blocking software is thwarting your ads.
Where can you reach a customer where you know that he or she will really be paying attention?
Takin’ it to the pumps
Digital out-of-home marketing provides opportunities to get marketing messages to consumers in unexpected places where they are more likely to sit up and take notice. Internet connected billboards and interactive ads at bus shelters are on the rise.
You may have noticed that more and more gas station pumps are equipped with television screens. Gas Station TV, a major maker of these devices, has TVs at 3,000 gas stations in 45 states, and claims 52 million monthly viewers. Gas station TVs are running advertisements for both local and national advertisers.
Yes, it’s really called Gas Station TV
According to Gas Station TV CEO David Leider, people pumping their gas are a captive audience for advertising.
“At a gas station, we’ve got someone tied to a screen with an eight-foot rubber hose for five minutes. They’ve got nothing to do, and we’re able to provide them with a great content experience.”
Leider says that gas station TV advertising is especially helpful in situations where a customers is more likely to make a purchase decision while they are already out of the road. For example, it may be challenging to convince a viewer who is already at home to get up and go out to a restaurant, but if the same person is already out in their car, they might be swayed by an ad to have lunch out.
Scheduled content and streaming
Because gas station TVs are IP addressable and connected to the internet, they can be updated throughout the day to provide specific targeted advertising. Says Leider,“our advertisers are really taking advantage of the ability to schedule content.”
Jury is out, for now
Gas Station TVs and other out-of-home digital markets will need to develop better analytics to gain insight as to the efficacy of such advertising. But one thing we know for sure is that people pumping gas don’t have anything much better to do than watch the screen.
