Greetings loyal readers,
PPAI announced yesterday that it was buying advertising time on one of Time Square’s JumboTrons to run a 15-second commercial explaining the value of promotional products in general as advertising tools. If you didn’t get their initial release, Charlie has the story in the newsletter for this week.
The exposure numbers for Times Square PPAI gives in the release are certainly staggering. If I’m reading the original press release right, the JumboTron gets about 1.5 million impressions a day. They’re displaying 15 seconds per hour, for 18 hours a day, so:
15/3600 seconds = 1/240 of the time per hour, or .417 percent. I guess you would multiply that by the 18 hours a day the JumboTron is on, which becomes 3/40, or 7.5 percent of the whole day (I hope, I’m not very good at math). 7.5 percent of 1.5 million is 112,500 impressions per day (1,500,000 times 0.075).
That’s a lot of impressions, especially considering how long the ad is going to run (from April to June). I wish I knew more about the science and metaphysics of advertising so I could factor for things that shape the value of those impressions, like the percentage of viewers who are small-business owners or people who work in advertising (presumably who the ad targets), how likely people are to mention the ad to relevant acquaintances, seasonal traffic through Times Square, the effects of repeated impressions, etc.
I think advertising promotional products is a pretty cool idea, and I think PPAI is approaching it from a fairly clever angle, but I’ve been wondering what I would do if I had the chance to do something similar?
If I had infinite money, I think I would create a bunch of TV PSA’s and run them everywhere I could, but given a realistic budget, I don’t know what my plan would be. Billboards and subway ads near a few big cities? A direct-mail campaign to marketing firms and small- and mid-sized businesses?
I’m curious to see what ideas you all would have for commercials advertising promotional products. E-mail your thoughts, ideas, or math corrections to [email protected], or you can post directly to my blog.
Charles Plyter Fact of the Week: Occasionally Charlie shares his fancy Trader Joe’s food with me. Sometimes it’s delicious, sometimes it’s weird, and sometimes it’s both.
