In its purest form, ambient advertising is essentially the placement of ads in unusual, high traffic places. These ads can range from large scale placements on elevator doors to full, graphic wraps on city busses and enormous, artistic installations in interesting places.

A form of guerilla marketing, this medium has taken on a new life outside of simple, non-traditional advertising in the form of giant coffee cups spilling over near Madison Square Garden in NYC and tiny cars secured with enormous bicycle locks in downtown Toronto. Even McDonald’s has entered the game lighting the Chicago area night sky with their world-famous fries.

What this medium does is give agencies large and small just one more way to stretch our creative muscles. Ambient advertising has given us license to explore the deepest reaches of our imaginations and implement creative that’s sure to be seen and create buzz at the same time – Whether it’s in a bathroom stall, embedded in the bar at your favorite pub or literally spilling onto a crowded street.

The best part of ambient advertising? It doesn’t take a huge budget to make an impact. Most major installations are designed for short periods of time and, since ambient isn’t limited to just large-scale attention grabbers, essentially if you can dream it, you can do it.

Want to use ambient advertising to market your new microbrew on a limited budget? Why not affix your logo to pool cues that you can give to bars with billiard tables? With ambient advertising, the options are endless. Get creative, think outside the box. More often than not, the payoff will be more than worth it.

You can check out some more of our favorite ambient campaigns here.

It’s no secret that women have traditionally been the primary decision makers in the household and advertisers have continually targeted their traditional ad messaging towards them. Since the social network boom has dramatically increased over the past couple of years, and with the new Facebook Timeline layouts and the ability to brand YouTube and Twitter pages, social branding and advertising has shared a bigger role in strategic media planning. This recent Nielsen study, highlighted in this graph, shows that women are more likely than men to be more active on social sites.

In short, advertisers keep doing what you’re doing and apply it to the social realm…because women will continue to dominate! (I just had to throw that in because I am a woman, and may be a little biased)

I’m sure you’ve heard that print is a dying breed.  Yes, newspapers aren’t as many pages as they used to be and their subscriber base has shrunk for all forms of print, but does that mean it’s not worth advertising in?

Rather than focus solely on circulation numbers (the actual number of printed copies), you should look at the medium’s readership (the percentage of adults who read the material) According to Scarborough research on newspapers, for the top 25 DMA’s, newspapers’ readership audience has higher household income levels than the overall median, are 16% more likely to be college graduates, and 11% more likely to be home owners. So what does this mean? Make sure you know your target audience and what their habits are. For example, that stay at home housewife is not the one commuting to work, probably not listening to the radio as much and is not passing billboards. But she may have time to flip through the newspaper or read a magazine while she’s drinking her morning coffee. I’ve been preaching throughout this series about having the right media mix.  If you put all of your eggs in one basket, you’ll be missing out on a potential customer.

So what are my advertising tips on print? If you can budget it, and you know you’ll be advertising often, buy in bulk. Frequency buys WILL save you money.  Make sure that your ad has a call to action. It could be a sale, a special discount to the customer that reads that ad, coupons, etc. You want to drive people to your location. Lastly, you want something that sets you a part from the rest of the crowd. Most likely your competitors are advertising in the same sections or trade publications as you are. Make your creative pop. It could be something as simple as a catchy headline, a crazy creative approach, or my favorite, white space!

As a bonus, here are some clever print ads that I like to help fuel your creative fire. (Severn Savings Bank ad by The Cyphers Agency)

I don’t have any clever references to stories about buying radio, so we’re going to dive right into it! Radio is probably the only media that will truly give you added value. Radio reps are willing to negotiate and give you free bonus time, tickets to events, advertising on their station’s website, etc. Use this to your advantage!

Radio buying is similar to TV in that you’re buying air time for certain period of time,:30 or :60 second spots, during day parts and on stations that hit your target audience. (You can apply the TV buying tips to radio from my Advertising 101 – Pt 2 blog) But, where you can get even more out of your radio buy is through what is referred to as added value.

Typically you can ask for bonus spots. They’re usually run of station, meaning that most likely they’re empty spots in less desirable time periods on weekends or 12a- 6a time slots, but hey, something is better than nothing! On air traffic/news sponsorships are also another added plug in stations are willing to throw in.

On a larger scale, there are two great ways to generate buzz for both you and the radio station:

One, live remotes. You’ll have to check with the radio station on extra costs. If you want a very popular DJ to be at your venue, it will most likely cost you extra money, but to have Joe Schmo radio DJ come on a weekend and promote an event or sale that you may be having, typically won’t cost you extra dollars.

Two, depending on your ad spend, you may be able to negotiate some on air promotion. For example, you’re a retail store having a big giveaway for the listeners. Both of these options are a win-win for you and the radio station.

So to conclude my radio buying words of wisdom, ask about added value! More often than not reps are more than willing to give you something extra beyond your buy.

I once used to work with an independent owner of a company that was of the philosophy that more is better, meaning, buy the cheaper spots on TV because I can get more commercials. What he didn’t take into consideration was that those spots are cheaper because less people are watching that particular station or at that particular time.  Are you one of these people?

I try to instill in my clients that for an effective campaign there are three things that that you should look at when buying television; target audience, reach and frequency.  So why do I need to look at these three things you ask? Luckily I just so happen to have an answer for you!

Target Audience – It seems like a no-brainer, but, you’d be surprised. Some advertisers will buy spots during a specific show just because they like it, not thinking that the numbers say that it only reaches 5% of their target audience.  Determine who it is you want to see your message. You can buy TV in two ways, by network, or even more granular, choose a specific program. Your TV rep can provide you with demographic information for these.

Reach – Once you’ve established your target audience, you should have an idea of what TV networks and shows fit your demographic. This is where the more bang for your buck theory comes in. Let’s do a for instance. You’re trying to reach women ages 25-34 and the top networks, let’s say, are the CW and Bravo TV. How do you determine which one is better? In this case look at the reach for each station.  Reach is the number homes you want to expose your message to. As far as dollars go, the cost may be a little higher on the station that has the higher reach. But it’s worth it for increased exposure. Look at it this way; do you pay a little extra for a Starbucks coffee just to do it? No, you do it because the jolt is better than your office coffee. (at least in my case it is) Point is, spend a little extra, get that extra bang.

Frequency – They say it takes and average of five repetitions for a viewer to remember the message. Smart advertisers know that to reinforce a message it must be done frequently. Your TV buying schedule will tell you how many times, on average, your target audience is exposed to your advertisement. (Averages are based on the budget you have set for the particular network/show)

Yes, it may cost you a little more money overall to have an effective television campaign, but I’m of the philosophy of go big or go home! Okay, maybe a little extreme and not everyone has a huge budget, but I guarantee that if you dive a little deeper into the statistics of your campaign that your return will be better in the end.

 An added bonus for your viewing pleasure: