How much information should be put in a billboard ad?

Prepared by J. Scott Armstrong (details on him at jscottarmstrong.com). Please inform Scott about errors and also make suggestions (armstrong@wharton.upenn.edu) Scott has taken these slides from adprin.com, a site that he founded. That site contains interactive versions of these slides, along with linked references, videos, and webcasts, all in PPT and PPTX format that you can download.

Adapted from AdPrin.com 2

Principle for fast-exposure media

How many words are on a typical highway billboard? _____And how many pieces of information? ____See the next slide for current practice.

Evidence on billboard ads

An experiment showed that billboard ads with 7 or fewer words had half again as much brand recall (Blasko 1985).

Words Info National advertisers 7 1.2Local advertisers 13 1.6

Why the difference between local and national? We suspect it is that the national advertisers are more likely to know the recommendations for their trade association and experts, who suggest using 8 words or less.

Adapted from AdPrin.com

Based on this exercise, write a small application step for yourself, and set a deadline, preferably within one week. If you are working with someone else, share your application plan and the results of your application.