introduction
Remember billboards? I do.As a young kid in California, my experiences from the back seat of our car mostly alternated between: “Mom, when are we there?” and “Uh, look, McDonald’s, can we go?” whenever one of those 10-foot billboards popped up on the side of the road.Growing up with Indian parents, the answer to both of those would, most times, be the same: “not yet.”Sometimes, big brands would even start a billboard war, like this one between Audi and BMW, which got quite a few laughs:
In 2015, a ton of my clients still spent hundreds of millions of dollars on billboard advertising.Unfortunately or fortunately, billboard advertising is mostly dead.Just think of it this way: Google and Facebook generate more revenue than any traditional media company because they control more eyeballs. That’s why digital marketing matters; it’s where the attention is.The reason why billboards, like the ones above, will die, is because the future of driving will look like this:
Although driverless cars already exist, drivers still have to pay attention; in the future, as the technology improves, not a single passenger will spend their time looking at the road.Do me a favor, the next time you drive and are giving a friend a ride, take a peek at the passenger seat. Even now, chances are they’ll be looking at their phone. If no one is looking at the road anymore, who’s supposed to see those advertisements?That means you don’t have much time to figure out this digital marketing stuff before you can power down your old school printing press and close up shop.
