Out of home advertising - Clients

[AntonyLawlor]

Hi,

Is there anyone out there that works in out of home advertising industry (paper / digital billboards etc) that can help me?

A long story short, I have a business idea that I have been planning meticulously for a couple of years now and one big (important) oversight figured out I have is finding client once the businesses is up and running.

I know there are directories out there that you can advertise in but I guess what I really want to do is approach big business (Asda, Tesco etc) as they are unlikely to be looking in said directories. I guess I really need to understand the advertising process of big businesses to understand what I need to do to sell.

Lets say Asda want to advertise some of there promotions in London, would they go directly to companies such as Clear Channel or JCDecaux and communicate to them via there design departments to produce the advertising media or would they go through advertising agencies such as those found on the list here

c a m p a i g n l i v e . c o . u k / article / top-100-agencies / 142752

Sorry not enough posts to share links yet.

I think it might be the latter or why would they appear on that list of clients for the agencies. Should I be approaching agencies as a bill board owner?

Thanks,
-Anton

 

[ethical PR]

I work in PR and have commissioned indoor and outdoor ads and done media buying for clients and when working in-house.

The simple answer is large companies normally use a specialist agency/agencies for their media, indoor and outdoor ad buying, digital and social media etc

Campaigns will either be developed in-house or through agencies or a combination of the two. These agencies tend to work under a retainer.

If Asda want to run an ad campaign in London they don't tend to advertise promotions, they advertise the brand.

it will be part of a wider campaign and they will get specialist advice on where best to advertise to reach their target audience whether it ambient ads, tube stations, buses, radio, broadcast, print, online.

They run integrated campaigns - they don't look at one advertising channel in isolation.

I would find it hard to believe that you have come up with a unique advertising channel that isn't being used.

 

[AntonyLawlor]

Thanks for the reply, some useful info there for me!

What exactly do you mean by "work under a retainer"?

If I had to say how different the channel was I would say semi unique - people are doing it but in a different kind of way (not so cost effective and not so accommodating to multiple ads). Big companies are also doing it, Clear Channel etc, but I know they charge allot more for so called "plays" got some quotes already from the big players and ran some rough numbers. I also have something unique the big players are not doing that I think make's my idea a whole lot more, good value for money if you want to call it that.

I made some calls last night and I think the types of companies I need to try and target are Media Agencies? would I be right in saying that? basically I need to figure out the search terms I need to find companies that buy outdoor ad space / specialize in it.

Thanks