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Welcome to the Billboard Mastery Podcast, where you will learn the correct way to identify, evaluate, negotiate, perform diligence on, select the construction type, build, rent the ad space and operate billboard signs. And now here is your host – the guy that built from scratch the largest privately-owned billboard company in Dallas/Ft. Worth – Frank Rolfe.
Have you ever looked at old photographs of billboards from the past, maybe back in the 1920s through the 1960s? And have you ever noticed that a lot of the advertisers you see on those billboards no longer exist? And even some of the products they have on the billboards, you no longer see on billboards at all. The two most obvious, of course, are tobacco and liquor. They were the largest category of billboard advertisers for decades. And then they vanished completely back in the 1980s when they changed the laws and they voluntarily withdrew forever from advertising signs. So, it then begs the question, what attributes do we see that are consistent among advertisers from all the way back in the beginnings of time to the current day? This is Frank Rolfe with the Billboard Mastery Podcast.
Now, when we think about the advertisers of days gone by, we have to remember that America has changed significantly since the advent of the sign in the 1920s. In the 1920s, we just started driving cars, for example. And telephones, if you were on the road, were pay phones. Heck, even electricity was a relatively new thing and there really wasn't air conditioning yet. So, some of the consumer products that were a big deal back in the early days, the reason you don't see those on signs anymore is those products are not even a part of the modern world. So, a lot of products have come and gone, maybe not in our lifetimes, but if you talk to someone who lived back in that era, you'll find that they saw many of the inventions today that we take for granted, which back then just didn't exist. And then, of course, you had the movement and the eradication of tobacco and liquor advertising from signs. At one point, that represented almost 50% of every billboard in the United States. So, when that left the building, it left a giant gaping hole to be filled with all other different kinds of advertisers. And that's why you don't see many of those products and services you see in those old photographs on signs today.
Yet, there's a lot that has remained consistent between the two. A big one is the fact that billboard advertisers are all about the traffic, and they try and utilize the strongest feature of any sign, which is the ability to use two words, exit now. Signs are the only point of purchase form of advertising that exists. Every other ad you may do, I don't care if it's online, newspaper, magazine, radio, TV, nothing is tied to your geographic proximity to the business. Now, you can get geofencing today on phones where an advertiser pays so that the phone is tracked. And when it might approach their business, they may get a pop-up text. But it's still not nearly as powerful as something right in your face as you're driving down the road with a big old 24-hour-a-day salesman in the form of the billboard screaming, exit now, exit now. So, the ability to utilize the words exit now and the proximity of a business to your billboard is always gonna be one of the most paramount, important ways that advertisers utilize a billboard to make money. So that hasn't changed one iota. Also, the types of advertisers you see on signs also remain kind of in the same basic subgroups.
For example, McDonald's has long been the largest user of billboards in the United States since the end of the tobacco and liquor era. And if you look at a lot of old signs, you'll see they also were for restaurants, and many of those restaurants have long gone out of business. But nevertheless, restaurants has always been a good thing for billboards. Why is that? Because it hits you when you're in the proximity of the restaurant. You don't think much about the restaurant in advance. You get hungry, look at your watch, see that it's lunch or dinner time, and then you start thinking, where can I go to eat? It's not like buying a car, buying a house, buying insurance, which is a bigger decision, which takes longer than you can think about any time, 24 hours a day. When it comes to dining, it's fairly much immediate and point-of-purchase related. So therefore, signs have always been a big proponent and well-embraced by restaurants.
Also by lodging, because a lot of times you're driving down the road and you wanna exit, and billboards are focused on roads. So as a result, anything that relates to vehicular traffic, lodging, truck stops, fuel stops, anything like that, that's always gonna be another big billboard advertiser, because the very nature of the business ties to what the very nature of billboards relate to, which is the driving, whether it's in a car or a truck. So it's transportation-related businesses. Those are always big for billboards. And then you have the national brands. National brands, their interest in billboards is to build identity and awareness, but they typically do it in conjunction with other media. Then we do it in conjunction with radio and television. So when you see that ad for Verizon, that's not the only way they're advertising Verizon.
Sure, you see it later that same day on cable, but it's all part of a general consensus program to build mass awareness in that market. And that has also remained true with billboards since the beginning. The bottom line to it is that the type of advertisers that billboards relate to really haven't changed enormously over time. If you look at those old photos, even though many of those products may no longer be in business, the general types and categories of businesses that use billboards remain the same. And if you understand those categories, that year after year are the ones who really love the billboard experience that will help you in your selection of advertisers that will stay on your signs year over year, always renewing and making renting your billboard a much more enjoyable and productive use of your time. This is Frank Rolfe the Billboard Mastery Podcast. Hope you enjoyed this. Talk to you again soon.