Why Billboards Are A Waste Of Money
For decades, billboards have been a staple in traditional advertising, but in today’s fast-paced, digital world, they have become an antiquated, ineffective, and overpriced medium. Businesses looking to maximize their marketing dollars need to rethink their strategies—because putting all your eggs in the billboard basket is a costly mistake.
The Problem With Billboards
- Lack of a Captive Audience
Unlike digital marketing or even traditional media like television and radio, billboards never provide a captive audience. People driving past an advertisement are often distracted or focused on the road, making it nearly impossible to capture their full attention. - Impressions Are Fleeting
With digital billboards constantly rotating ads, your message is visible for mere seconds. This reduces the likelihood of retention and significantly diminishes the impact of your campaign. Static billboards are no better—while they may be visible for longer, they quickly blend into the background and become part of the everyday scenery. - Overpriced and Inefficient
Billboards demand a premium price for placement, yet their return on investment (ROI) is difficult to measure. Unlike digital marketing, which provides trackable engagement metrics, billboards leave businesses guessing about their effectiveness. If your advertising budget is limited, investing in a medium that lacks measurable results is a risk you cannot afford. - Lack of Immediate Actionability
Most people are not in a position to take immediate action when they see a billboard. Whether they’re driving or commuting, they can’t just stop and make a purchase or visit a website on the spot. Contrast this with digital ads, where users can instantly click to call, visit a website, or complete a purchase.
Smarter Alternatives for Your Marketing Budget
Instead of pouring money into an outdated medium, businesses should focus on advertising strategies that provide measurable results, better audience targeting, and higher engagement rates. Some effective alternatives include:
– Search Engine Marketing (SEM) & Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising: Get your brand in front of potential customers actively searching for your products or services. – Social Media Advertising: Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and LinkedIn allow precise targeting based on user behavior and demographics. – Content Marketing & SEO: Creating valuable content and optimizing for search engines ensures long-term visibility and organic traffic growth. – Email & SMS Marketing: Engage with your audience directly through personalized campaigns that drive conversions.
Invest Wisely—Go Digital
If your business relies solely on billboards for advertising, you may be setting yourself up for failure. At Mad Men Marketing, we specialize in data-driven, digital-first marketing solutions that deliver real results. Don’t waste your budget on an outdated medium—let us help you build a marketing strategy that works.
Contact us today to learn how we can maximize your advertising investment and take your brand to the next level.
Paramount+ vs Broadcast
The Advantages of Advertising on Paramount + vs. Broadcast TV
In today’s evolving advertising landscape, choosing the right platform can significantly impact your brand’s success. With traditional broadcast television competing against newer streaming platforms like Paramount Plus, it’s essential to understand which medium offers greater advantages for your marketing goals.
At Mad Men Marketing, we frequently advise clients about effective advertising strategies tailored to modern audiences. In this article, we outline key benefits of advertising on Paramount Plus compared to traditional broadcast television.
Targeted Audience Reach
Paramount Plus:
Advertising on Paramount Plus offers powerful targeting options, allowing brands to reach specific demographics based on interests, viewing habits, and content preferences. This tailored approach ensures your message resonates directly with your ideal audience, enhancing ad effectiveness and ROI. You can also view analytics about your ads in real-time. Paramount Plus even has a pixel you can add to your website to track a desired action.
Broadcast Television:
Traditional broadcast television typically provides a broad, less targeted audience. While beneficial for mass-market awareness, it doesn’t offer precise demographic targeting, potentially leading to less efficient use of advertising budgets. This is especially notable when you have a business with a single location in a specific area of town that wouldn’t benefit from the reach of a large geographic DMA.
Higher Viewer Engagement
Paramount Plus:
Viewers on Paramount Plus are actively selecting their content, making them more engaged with what they watch—and consequently, with the advertisements they see. Ads within streaming services are often shorter and less intrusive, making viewers less likely to tune them out.
Broadcast Television:
Broadcast TV ads often interrupt programming, leading to lower viewer engagement. Audiences typically utilize commercial breaks for other activities, decreasing ad recall and overall effectiveness.
Precise Analytics and Measurement
Paramount Plus:
Advertising on streaming platforms like Paramount Plus provides detailed analytics such as viewer impressions, demographic insights, ad completion rates, and engagement metrics. This rich data helps brands optimize their campaigns in real-time, improving performance continuously.
Broadcast Television:
Traditional TV ads rely on broader, less granular ratings systems. While useful, these ratings offer limited immediate insight into campaign performance, viewer engagement, or detailed demographic data, making precise optimization more challenging.
Flexibility and Cost Efficiency
Paramount Plus:
Digital streaming platforms offer flexible advertising packages with customizable budgets, campaign lengths, and ad placements. Brands can start, pause, or adjust their campaigns quickly to respond to performance data or market conditions, ensuring maximum budget efficiency.
Broadcast Television:
Advertising on broadcast television typically requires larger budgets, longer lead times, and fixed schedules. There’s less room to make rapid adjustments, potentially leading to less efficient use of advertising spend.
Growing and Diverse Audiences
Paramount Plus:
Streaming services like Paramount Plus are rapidly growing their user base, capturing diverse audiences across all demographics. The rise of cord-cutting means more consumers are adopting streaming platforms, presenting advertisers with significant new growth opportunities.
Broadcast Television:
While still reaching broad audiences, broadcast television faces declining viewership among younger demographics who increasingly prefer digital and streaming platforms. Advertisers targeting younger or tech-savvy consumers may miss key opportunities by relying solely on broadcast television.
Less Ad Clutter, Greater Visibility
Paramount Plus:
Paramount Plus generally offers limited commercial breaks, meaning fewer ads competing for viewer attention. This reduced clutter ensures your advertisements stand out, leading to greater visibility and brand recall.
Broadcast Television:
Commercial breaks on broadcast TV can be lengthy and crowded, making it challenging for individual ads to capture viewer attention. Increased clutter decreases overall ad visibility and effectiveness.
Final Thoughts: Paramount Plus or Broadcast TV?
When considering advertising strategies, it’s clear that Paramount Plus offers significant advantages over traditional broadcast television, especially regarding targeted reach, viewer engagement, precise analytics, budget flexibility, and reduced ad clutter.
Mad Men Marketing can help your brand navigate this landscape effectively. Our expert media planners will develop tailored campaigns designed for maximum impact on platforms like Paramount Plus.
Ready to elevate your advertising strategy with Paramount Plus? Contact Mad Men Marketing today to get started.
What is Streaming TV?
What Is Streaming TV? A Guide for Advertisers and Brands
In the past decade, the way people consume television has changed dramatically. Gone are the days of rigid cable schedules and bulky satellite dishes. Instead, streaming TV has taken center stage, offering viewers the ability to watch their favorite content anytime, anywhere. But what exactly is streaming TV, and why should businesses pay attention to it? At Mad Men Marketing, we believe in staying ahead of the curve when it comes to media trends. Let’s break it down.
Understanding Streaming TV
Streaming TV, also known as Over-the-Top (OTT) television, refers to content that is delivered via the internet rather than traditional cable or satellite services. Platforms like YouTube TV, Hulu + Live TV, Sling TV, and FuboTV allow users to stream live television channels, including news, sports, and entertainment, without requiring a traditional cable subscription.
Types of Streaming TV
Streaming TV can be divided into three main categories:
- Live Channel Streaming Services – These platforms, like YouTube TV, Hulu + Live TV, and Sling TV, provide access to live broadcast channels over the internet, often with cloud DVR capabilities for recording shows.
- Subscription-Based On-Demand Services (SVOD) – Platforms like Netflix, Disney+, and HBO Max allow users to access a library of content on demand for a monthly fee but typically do not include live channels.
- Ad-Supported Streaming (AVOD & FAST) – Free, ad-supported streaming services like Pluto TV, Tubi, and Freevee offer live and on-demand content at no cost to viewers, funded by advertisements. FAST (Free Ad-Supported Streaming Television) platforms provide live TV experiences similar to traditional cable but without the subscription fees.
Why Live Streaming TV Matters for Advertisers
The rise of live streaming TV has created new opportunities for brands to reach audiences in a more engaging and measurable way. Here’s why businesses should take notice:
- Highly Targeted Advertising – Unlike traditional TV ads, live streaming platforms allow advertisers to target audiences based on demographics, interests, and viewing behavior.
- Dynamic Ad Insertion (DAI) – Live streaming services use DAI technology to serve targeted ads in real time, maximizing relevance and engagement.
- Cross-Device Accessibility – Live streaming content is accessible on smart TVs, mobile devices, tablets, and computers, giving brands more touchpoints to reach their audience.
- Measurable Performance – Digital ad placements in live streaming TV offer real-time metrics on impressions, engagement, and conversions, allowing for data-driven ad strategies.
The Future of Live Streaming TV
With more households cutting the cord and opting for internet-based live TV services, the industry is only expected to grow. The rise of FAST platforms and hybrid subscription models means advertisers have more opportunities to engage with audiences in real time.
For businesses looking to expand their digital marketing strategy, live streaming TV advertising presents an opportunity to reach audiences in a way that is immersive, targeted, and highly effective. Whether through FAST platforms, live TV streaming services, or hybrid models, brands can craft engaging campaigns that align with modern viewing habits.
At Mad Men Marketing, we specialize in helping brands navigate the evolving media landscape. If you’re ready to explore live streaming TV advertising, let’s talk! Reach out to us today to craft a strategy that puts your brand in front of the right audience at the right time.
BEST BIG GAME TV Commercial
Another year another mixed bag of Super Bowl commercials (not to mention a huge blowout of a game). Some really stood out to me while others left me wondering if the $8 million price tag for some of these spots worth it? Super Bowl is seen by the largest audience in the world but for some companies it’s still a risk to ride on one 30 second commercial. Here’s my thoughts on my favorite spot this year!
FOX Indy
The FOX Indy TV spot had to take the top spot for me. With the Harrison Ford Jeep commercial, Nike women’s commercial, Uber Eats and the Jordan Hate commercial all in consideration. This was an ad with everything: great funny script, engaging visuals that had a throwback but modern look and style and at the end of the day it engaged the audience (fans or not) to meet one of their drivers and see what their sport is all about.
Pato O’Ward
This guy is a superstar. That’s what I come away with after seeing this spot. I’m not a huge racing fan myself but this still engaged me enough and locked his name in my head for future events, commercials etc. This is a monumental part of branding: getting a logo, phrase, call to action (or in this case a name of a racer) “stuck” in someone’s head. Every line of this script and every visual builds him up and gives him life and personality. Making him the perfect face of the sport, now he just needs to win the big race!
MAD Thoughts
This commercial while hilarious and awesome to watch, also gave us details on the sport mixed in with exciting visuals, transitions and pace. This hooked the people partly paying attention while covering all the bases of a big game spot. This would appeal to a wide audience while also appealing to fans of the sport. They kept it light and funny, but exciting and fast, while still showing us the sport, fans and racers and hopefully (for that $8 million price tag) hooked some new fans.
Pickleball, Beer and Relevance: 2025 Michelob Ultra Super Bowl Ad
Beer is Served
Starting the ad with a hard serve the best-selling beer in America appears on screen to score an easy first point. The beer is being consumed by a pickleball duo. The viewers are engaged but to make it all better, two actors that never lost their buzz appear on screen.
What I mean by not losing their buzz is me simply saying they have stayed relevant for many years. Willem Dafoe & Catherine O’Hara challenge the pickleball partners in a match, winner takes the beers.
The dynamic pickleball duo has a love for the game but an even deeper love for Michelob Ultra. Defeating their opponents with ease in order to be rewarded with more beer.
This Feels Ultra Familiar
This ad succeeds mostly due to one reason. Relevance.
This allows our brains to latch on to the advertisement. In this case it’s three separate links that connect to make it happen. From the jump the beer catches our eye. Beer is the beverage of football fans. Then familiar faces enter the screen, actors in this case. To seal the deal, pickleball is introduced into the ad. Pickleball is the fastest growing sport in America.
Those 3 links have us fully engaged. Now the ad needs to finish the match and make a lasting impression. This is accomplished by scenes of Willem and Catherine comically but mostly in impressive fashion beating their opponents.
Winning Tastes Good
The marketing team at Michelob Ultra rallied to piece together a great ad. Relevance and winning go hand in hand in the advertising world.
Subtract one of the 3 key links to the ad and I feel like it wouldn’t feel as strong as it does now. We wouldn’t be fully engaged. We wouldn’t care as much to be on that winning team.
We would love to be a part of your dynamic duo here at Mad Men Marketing. We want to find your target audience and help you reach them better. Through data and analyzing we will make sure you stay relevant and winning!