The outdoor advertising industry, according to the official organization, the Outdoor Advertising Association of America (OAAA) is a continuously growing industry that accounts for some $3 billion in revenues for the members. Other sources estimate the figure higher, some going as high as $5 billion (Goffen, 2000, D1). A table run in the Los Angeles Times points out the leading industry types that are using outdoor advertising.
Table 1: Outdoor Advertising Expenditures (1999)
Public transportation/hotels/resorts
* Medical/Dental, Beauty Salons, etc.
* TV, Radio, Magazines, Newspapers, Movies, etc.
Pappas, in an article that sometimes attacks this growth of ads says, "The ads are getting larger, yes, but smaller too. Some are 10 stories high. At the other end, there's street furniture--bus shelter and information kiosks as well as mobile billboards, trucks with poster panels or electronic, 3-D or video screen displays" (Pappas)
The OAAA reports a membership of more than 1100 companies that specialize in
selling one or more forms of outdoor advertising. Further, the organization provides on its web site a series of charts that tell the outdoor story graphically. Illustration 1, below, shows the top spenders in outdoor, based on 1999 figures.
According to the OAAA, the major benefits of outdoor advertising are:
A. Economic -- It is the cheapest form of media selection.
B. Popularity -- Billboards have become an icon of the American scene, and the message retention factors are high.
C. It is an easy and efficient way to localize national sales messages
D. It has a long endurance, since billboards are up for months at a time, whereas TV, newspapers, magazines and other types of media rely on repetition.
E. Outdoor advertising has the ability to communicate a message to a massive mobile audience with continuous presence...
F. Outdoor's true strength is its unique position within majo...