Gas Station Advertising

There’s no question that people respond to advertisements in different ways. Oftentimes, a person’s initial reaction to an ad will instill them with some sort of bias toward the product being advertised. For example, commuters might come to associate a billboard ad with the mind-numbing traffic jam’s they are forced to negotiate on the way to work. But then, later that night, they might head to a nightclub and see a subtle, tasteful indoor ad in the men’s room. It’s obvious which ad is likely to elicit a positive response.

Indoor advertising has another crucial edge over its outdoor counterpart: there’s no sense that the ad is obstructing a view or “littering” the landscape. It’s to the point now that billboards are practically ignored as motorists learn to filter out their imagery and message. Indoors, consumers are less likely to expect a barrage of advertising and hence more likely to pay attention to what’s in front of them.

When I was in college, most of my classes were held in the same wing of the same building. The bathroom in that wing always had advertisements placed on the stall doors. So every time I used that bathroom, I would just read the sign, over and over. By the time I graduated, I had all the advertisements memorized, and knew exactly which ads were in which stalls.Recently, I read an article about bathroom advertising and thought it sounded like a silly, ridiculous notion. Who wants to advertise in a public bathroom? Who is really going to pay attention to that? Well, me, apparently.

Bathroom advertising is some of the most effective advertising out there. Its placement pretty much guarantees that it will be read, and it can be precisely targeted to an audience. And if there’s any place that people for sure go, it’s to the bathroom. Studies have shown that approximately three-quarters of restaurant patrons will go to the bathroom at some point during their meal, and club-goers will about three times during an average evening at a night club. Which just goes to show – creative ad placement works best.