An Amber Alert in action

At the end of October 2008 I found myself with quite a few hours to spare as I waited in Chicago’s O’Hare Airport for a connecting flight. Having never been to Chicago, I hopped on a train that was heading for the city. On the journey I stared out the window and among the many sites I saw was a billboard displaying what is known as an AMBER Alert™.

The AMBER Alert Program is a voluntary partnership between law-enforcement agencies, broadcasters, transportation agencies, and the wireless industry, to activate an urgent bulletin in the most serious child-abduction cases. The goal of an AMBER Alert™ is to instantly galvanize the entire community to assist in the search for and the safe recovery of a child.

This creative use of a billboard got me thinking about how the Billboard medium is evolving, and how with the help of technology, the Billboard is becoming an effective Direct Response channel. Here are a few examples of how technology is breathing new life into the Billboard:

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In-game advertising

The world has come a long way since Pong launched the initial boom in the video game industry way back in 1972. These days computer and video games are big business, bringing in $9.5 billion in 2007 alone; in fact such games as Grand Theft Auto IV earned over $500 million in sales in its first week… more than the opening weekend of Spider-Man 3.

In 2005, spending on in-game advertising was $56million and according to industry experts that figure is expected to swell to $1.8billion by 2010. It’s clear to see that marketers see in-game advertising as a prime way to target the male 18-34 demographic, who are increasingly neglecting television in favour of computer and video games.

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Marketing has been around a lot longer than you may think. In fact, commercial messages, lost-and-found advertisements and even political campaigns can be traced back to ancient civilisations around the world; from Greece, Rome and Pompeii to Egypt and Arabia. 

Pre-20th Century marketing

The ensuing millennia saw the continuation of small-scale marketing communication, mostly effected by street callers who were hired by stallholders to promote their wares. In seventeenth-century England, weekly newspapers began to print classified ads and descriptive pieces on the latest books and medicines available, including their cost. French newspaper La Presse pioneered the concept of paid advertising in 1836, allowing it to lower its cost while upping its profits; an idea soon copied by newspapers the world over. But it wasn’t until the late nineteenth century, when better technology allowed the printing of colour and illustrations, that mass-marketing really started to take shape.
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