Placement is key

Placement is key. One of the biggest mistakes made by those new to billboard advertising is improper placement of the billboard site itself. Take time to understand who your target audience is and where they will most likely be. Even a well designed billboard will be rendered useless if placed in front of the wrong audience. Start searching for your perfect location here.

Don’t use too many words.

Use too many words. With billboard advertising, LESS is MORE. While the design and structure of the billboard itself should be creative, the message it conveys should be just the opposite. Your audience may only have a brief moment to take in your message, so keep your text as limited as possible. The creative aspects are used to grab the audience’s attention, but once you have it you want to deliver a simple and powerful message. Billboards are extremely effective for mass brand awareness, and keeping the message simple is the best way to do this.

Do create impact.

Create Impact. Do use strong, pure colors. Also use bright colors, contrasting with strong bold type, because your poster will be seen at different times of the day. A headline must be legible at any reasonable distance from close by to at least 120 metres. A letter height of 50cm is recommended. No letters should be less than 30cm in height if we are to communicate a message effectively at a distance. Find more information on sizing here.

Don’t use small images.

Don’y use small images. This happens to be a lot more common than you may believe. Small images taken from websites or brochures will look blurry when scaled up to fit a billboard. It is very important that you only use high resolution images only. Whether it is a purchased stock image or provided by a professional photographer. Think about the consumers at all times. Would they respond properly to an ad that cannot be seen properly? As you can see by the chart on the right, the human eye is only able to resolve a certain amount of resolution based on viewing distance, and there is an equation we can use to figure this out:

Do get creative.

Give consumers a reason to engage with your brand, use humor, wit and intrigue. Interact with technology or use real time messages. offer free products through ambient advertising and don’t be confined by the boundaries of a frame. Cutout Extensions, etc. can greatly add to your design. Find some inspiration from creative campaigns and outdoor media from around the world.

Don’t forget your options.

Most advertisers tend to default to ‘only billboards’ in their outdoor advertising efforts, however, this form of tunnel vision can hinder your results and prevent the campaign from reaching its full potential. From bus wraps, sides backs and interiors, train platforms, bus stops, cafe panels, shopping panels, digital billboards, university advertising, pharmacy and liquor store panels, airport advertising, street posters, wall signs and outdoor digital solutions – all these formats can work together in best encapsulating your campaigns and gaining your audience’s attention. See a breakdown of all the formats below in our 2020