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The Power of Storytelling in Out-of-Home Advertising: Lessons from Lenny Rachitsky's Interview with Nancy Duarte
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Written by: Prashant Kaw - Mar 31, 2022 1:52:40 PM
Did you see Wes Frick's LinkedIn post, "What Not to Do on a Billboard?" Hopefully you didn't see yourself in that picture! Wes' mythical billboard has it all going on – but not in a good way. It's not eye-catching, it's eye-crossing. In fact, it's a mess. It "features" 14 different visual elements. Fourteen! None of them stand out, so all of them are lost.
"These are all things that people do that take away from focusing on one idea," Wes points out. "When multiple ideas are presented, it's more to decipher." Even if you aced your speed reading course, you couldn't possibly grasp all this information in just a couple of seconds driving by. The message here is crystal clear: if you cover your billboard with Too Much Stuff, it will fail in every way, wasting your marketing budget on mal-designed content.
Billboards can transform the effectiveness of your digital marketing, but they do cost money so you don't want to blow the opportunity. As a professional billboard design consultant Wes Crick knows what (not) to do. "In order for a billboard to truly be effective, you really have to get the message across in 2-3 seconds even though the viewer may have 5-7 seconds to read it."
So where does this board go wrong?
The email address and phone number hint at a call to action, but they fall flat. No one will remember that r-e-a-l-l-y-l-o-n-g email address, and even if someone did manage to memorize the phone number, this billboard doesn't say who they should call or why.
All-caps are hard to read, non-critical punctuation adds clutter, and this billboard even has a TYPO. Can you find it?
So what does a great billboard look like and how can you create one?
In other words, if it isn't mission-critical to your ad campaign goal, leave it out. Getting billboard content just right requires some thought. We're here to help, with tips for successful design and a discussion of what it takes to reach an audience that is literally on the move.
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