Mark Ritson on branding: Careless clutter costs bottom lines

Marketing 07-Dec-05

Once upon a time in a town called Clutter, a young marketer had an idea. Clutter had a vibrant town square and most of the area's residents passed through this square at least once a day.

The young marketer's idea was a simple but brilliant one. He would erect
a giant billboard on the Eastern side of the square and sell the space
to companies, which could use it to advertise their wares to the local

population for a fee of £50 a week.

When the billboard was erected, the people of Clutter were intrigued by
the new construction. Once companies began to advertise on the
billboard, the ads caused a huge commotion.

The people of Clutter had never seen ads this size before and many would
congregate in the square just gazing up at the huge ads that now looked
down upon them. Every day, the townspeople would stop and gaze in wonder
at the advertising.

Advertisers realised how powerful this new medium was and soon the
weekly fee for the billboard had reached £200.

Then the marketer (he was no longer young) had another brilliant
idea.

He created another billboard on the Western side of the square. There
was less excitement about having a second huge advertising site hovering
over the town, but the people of Clutter now shared their daily
attention between the two billboards. The marketer was able to charge
companies £200 to advertise on each site. He rubbed his hands with
glee and thought 'what a clever marketer I am.'

It didn't take him long to hit upon the idea of erecting a third
billboard, this time on the North side of the square. Up it went and
again the price tag for advertisers was £200 a week. But by now
the people of Clutter were getting used to the idea of huge advertising
all around town, and many of them had started ignoring the billboards
altogether.

As a result, the advertisers began to realise that this once-powerful
medium was much less effective than it used to be. The price of
advertising on one of the billboards dropped to £150 a week.

The marketer was a little depressed with the downturn, but he consoled
himself with the thought that because three billboards made him more
money than two, it was still a good business decision.

The marketer had grown fat and greedy by now. Every day he gazed
enviously at the South side of the square and the big blue space that
existed there, and dreamed of a fourth billboard. Finally, after much
arguing with the Mayor of Clutter, he was granted permission to erect a
fourth billboard in the town square.

The result was disastrous. Starved of sunlight and barraged by
advertising on all sides, the people of Clutter now ignored all the
advertising in the town square completely. Others decided to avoid the
cluttered town square and seek out a more calming route through the
town.

The prices for advertising on all four billboards crashed and the
marketer finally realised that there would be only one solution to save
his business: taller billboards.

Last week the terrestrial channels lobbied communications regulator
Ofcom to allow them to introduce an additional 24 minutes of advertising
per channel every day.

Several senior media planners have warned that such a move would
increase clutter and eventually result in more ads that generate less
revenue for the terrestrial channels.

Two weeks ago GCap Media sales chief Duncan George announced that its
flagship radio station, Capital FM, would schedule no more than two ads
in a row from this month and thus almost halve ad minutage on the London
station.

Most media experts welcomed the decision, which came as part of a
company-wide restructure. GCap Media shares dropped 17% on the day the
move was announced. It is now viewed as a target for takeover.

30 SECONDS ON ... OUTDOOR ADVERTISING

- Outdoor advertising can be divided into roadside, which accounted for
52.4% of activity in the third quarter of 2005, transport (35.8%) and
retail/POS/leisure (11.8%), according to the Advertising Association and
World Advertising Research Center.

- The gross revenue for total outdoor advertising in the same period was
£222.1m, a 4% increase on 2004. Entertainment and media is the
biggest sector, with a £34m outdoor adspend in the third quarter.
Telecoms and motors are the next-biggest sectors with outdoor spends of
£22.4m and £18.4m respectively, according to Outdoor
Advertising Update, July-September 2005.

- The top three outdoor advertisers in the third quarter were Unilever,
T-Mobile and DFS, with spends of £9.7m, £5m and £4.7m
respectively, according to Nielsen Media Research.