Mobile Advertising Essay, Research Paper

Introduction

Outdoor Advertising has proved through the years to be an efficient tool for clients and Agencies in their marketing plans and strategies. As advertising expenditures increase from year to year, outdoor advertising is in turn increasing its market share. International budgets are interested in this media, considered of high impact worldwide.

Where do people spend most of their time? Most countries throughout the world have traffic problems, which lead them to enhance new techniques in order to get the message through to the consumer. Many and different approaches has been used by companies to infect the consumer with the product advertised. Lebanon has been proven to have one of the busiest streets, due to the increase in the number of automobiles traveling the streets, which lead to the more frequent unbearable traffic jams, and so, mobile advertising. Lebanon at this point adopted ?Mobile Affiche?.

History

Mobile Affiche is originally a French company, established by two brothers, in 1993. The company at first started with a very small number of trucks. Mobile Affiche turned to be a success, it was able to increase its? inventory and so increasing the company size. In a few years later Mobile Affiche was able to expand enough to go international. Establishing many branches through out the globe, including Kuwait. Kuwait is the first Arab country where this kind of advertising is used, the efficiency to advertise to the public was observed by researchers in Kuwait, and through all other countries that also opened branches of Mobile Affiche in their areas. The branch in Lebanon was launched September 2000, located in Sabtieh, Ferdaws street.

Management

The Main Branch in Lebanon has a very simple yet effective administration, enabling a harmonized, well-coordinated and controlled atmosphere where the work is split among the employees to reach maximum effectiveness. The office is sub-divided into different groups in order to accomplish the degree of professionalism at which Mobile Affiche is. To reach up for the accepted standards dealt upon with Main Office in France, Mobile Affiche Lebanon had to organize all procedures done by its? employees to keep work running smoothly.

Mobile Affiche Lebanon holds the amount of 30 (thirty) drivers, each driver assigned to some different location from the other. The route where every driver is assigned has primary and secondary objectives. The main aim (primary) is to pass through certain checkpoints. These check points are defined by the distribution of population throughout the country. Whereas, the secondary objective is to locate where coincidental gathering of population while traveling through its course. The driver takes this decision, ?the driver at this point must enjoy the feeling of belongingness to the firm, Mobile Affiche?, elaborated Talal Itani, Operation Manager. The routes are studied by a group of supervisors, they study road maps, new complexes and infrastructures that are to open soon, and any group activity that will be held, attended by a large number of individuals.

The office also holds a secretary to coordinate appointments for future, potential, current, and past customers and linking them with management to enrich the public with as much product advertisements as possible. Also, a personal faculty that is responsible of truck maintenance and any mechanical failures that might occur. This faculty includes one driver; the driver is used for any mechanical failures taking place on the road.

Finally, decision makers; the company embraces one accountant keeping account of all financial statements and estimating the year?s budget. Then comes, Mr. Talal Itani, Operation Manager, according to Mr Itani he foresees the company?s future, with better equipment, more professional staff, and the use of technology. ?Technology?not only to satisfy our consumers satisfaction, and influencing the public, but also to insure a better run organization. On top of the hierarchy, the General Manager, he?s the person in charge of all the business? day to day activities. He also has the last word in everything to be done to enhance the firm?s future activities.

Facts & Figures

Mobile Affiche offers the consumer an infinite amount of places to view their advertisements, the Mobile Affiche truck can travel all day and cover 180 km, depending traffic pressures. Doing so, the ad is exposed to the public at different locations thus viewing it to different viewers.

According to Mr. Itani, a survey has been done and it has been noticed that mobile advertising, unlike any other has a large impact on the society, here are some of the results from the survey carried out in March, 2001:

General Demographics:

?80.6% of trailer graphics viewers are between the ages of 25-54.

?88.6% of viewers have 1-3 children.

Rolling Graphics Make a Big Impact:

?96% of viewers indicated that trailer ads create more impact than billboards.

?98% of viewers felt that the ad on a trailer created a positive image for the advertiser.

?61.7% of viewers have 2-3 people in the vehicle when noticing trailer graphics.

?72% of vehicle passengers notice trailer advertisements.

An over-the-road Mobile Affiche provides:

?10 million visual impressions annually.

?14 million visual impressions when operated at night with optional reflective graphics.

?Trailer Graphics are highly exposed and recognized

?97% of viewers recall seeing specific trailer advertisements.

?73% of viewers recall seeing an advertisement on more than one side of the trailer.

?59.6% notice trailer ads in the afternoon or early evening.

?82% of viewers notice trailer advertisements when the truck is on the road/moving.

?89% notice trailer ads while traveling in the same direction as the truck.

The figures would show how Mobile Advertising can be differentiated from other kinds of outdoor advertising, such as billboards and sponsors posting up ads just to give a picture of the product that is being promoted.

Mobile Advertising Trucks have become an indispensable Marketing tool, consistently used by major companies who wish to build a corporate image or enhance brand name recognition. To a mobile vehicle with eye, level display, moving advertising is a high profile medium with superior levels of recall. Moving advertising generates tens of thousands of tourists, business & local impressions daily. No other medium can produce the frequency or visibility, and hence the dominance of moving advertising.

Our exterior, left, and right panels reach thousands of people with effective, efficient out-of-house exposure everyday. When you make Mobile Affiche a strategic part of your advertising mix, you’re assured of significant exposure to your target audiences.

Benefits

There are many positive aspects for mobile advertising that can take over normal billboards, the only downside is the high pricing, but this may be due to the monopolistic competition that Mobile Affiche is running. A 10in. X 20in. rolling screen appears on the back, right, and left sides of the truck as it travels though the route assigned by the supervisors and agreed upon by the General Manger. As mentioned before in the article, the truck has the ability to travel into different places, including the ones that are impossible to place normal billboards. Such locations may vary, but most of the places that advertising is not allowed is where public properties are present (example: Central Bank Road); Mobile Affiche trucks have no problem advertising in this area.

In addition, the trucks have the abilty to advertise at night as well. The trucks are equipped with a 1500 watt of electrical power that is recharged every time the truck?s engine is running, working just like a car battery. This electrical charge lights the rear end of the truck, thus giving a better view for product advertising. The lighting scheme is not like any other seen before, lighting is an inner lamp that glows the transparent giving the best quality of product advertising. Comparing mobile advertising with any other form would show that this kind has many advantages over others in that it has:

Visibility- Mobile Affiche with its extensive high quality ads rolling through it, having two different ads roll over each other without running over each other and dislocating the quality paper. That would insure day adverting, night adverting as discussed previously, has the extra light coming from the inside of the truck to reflect the image clearly.

Large- Trucks have a large screen rolling the sides and back, where it provides advertising for greater distances, and still be readable and understandable.

Coverage- Supervisors study road maps, and new built infrastructures that are attracting people and so they set routes to that specific area, and establish a rotation of trucks so that the people can see the products being advertised.

Exposure- People at this point already know what the advertisement is about, they?ve already seen it on TV, billboards, or even on the Mobile Affiche?s Trucks but the frequent exposure would stimulate consumers to try and buy the product, hence raising the demand on the advertised product.

Future Prospects

According to Mr. Itani, it won?t be far till more companies are established with the same aim, mobile adverting. Yet, Mobile Affiche will be the dominant one, the fact that they are the oldest in the market would give them ahead start over any new entrants.

He also emphasises that many accessories will be added to the trucks to insure that the work done is the one asked for. For example, the current tracking procedure is to contact every driver while in course and ask about his current position, checkpoints as mentioned earlier, and look for drivers while on route by assigned other drivers to check that every driver is doing his job as described.

The main accessory for this is to build a GPS locating device in every truck so that all trucks can be tracked down. The device would send signals via satellite to main branch, doing so every bus can then be located and sent to the closest area with maximum efficiency. Drivers would also become supervised for the routes that they take, instant checking whether the driver is on course or not would become a single button away.

Many other minor adjustments will take place but this is the most primary one, many others will insure consumer satisfaction and a better job done. Some of those is to have more trucks rotating through the country, ?having trucks 20 minutes away from each other would be better than having them 40 minutes away?, Itani explained.

Conclusion and Recommendations

Mobile Affiche advertising, growing at an unpredictable rate has the ability to advertise to more than 1.500.000 people a month, with this kind of adverting no one including foreign franchisees and companies, can resist the temptation to view their products by such means.

Every growing business hopes to get people?s attraction, now with the help of Mobile Affiche businesses don?t have to worry about getting the publics knowledge about the advertised product. Mobile Affiche has its special view to everyone on the road, the trucks themselves attract enough attention, people while driving or stuck in traffic read any thing that comes their way and so they have a better percentage to read the truck ahead than reading a sign that is a few kilometres away.

Mobile Affiche might earn the public?s respect for their efforts and their coordination with the traffic regulations, but there may still be some misleading aspects that would ruin the industry, having more trucks on the road might increase the number of vehicles, more even subjecting the public to more fumes thereby polluting the environment, specially that most of the areas in Beirut are packed, buildings are built next to each other, having less drafts, keeping the air trapped.

Having more advertising campaigns introduces people to new products and services, the more the products vary the happier the consumer is. The happier the consumer the more he?ll spend to become satisfied, so what else do we need from a happy town, a town like Beirut.