Billboard gauges nation's mood

FCB's direct and interactive team (from left) Scott Hendrey, Matt Simpkins and Justin Mowday who created the billboard campaign. Picture / Paul Estcourt

Interactive billboards debut in New Zealand today with current affairs magazine the Listener trying to gauge the mood of the nation on selected issues and attract younger readers.

The billboards, which are increasingly used overseas, encourage people to log on to a website to vote on what they should carry next week.

FCB creative Matt Simpkins, who was part of the team behind the campaign, says the aim is to get people to think rather than tell them what to do.

Each week, nine topics such as the Da Vinci Code, house prices and micro-chipping dogs, will be rated on a scale of topical and interesting or tedious and dated.

People can then go online at i-think, have their say and add their own topics of interest. The billboards will be updated weekly to reflect the feedback.

Simpkins aims to attract thousands of people to the website and expects one new topic suggested by the public to appear on the billboards each week.

The campaign includes print advertising in addition to the website and billboards.

The Listener's parent company, New Zealand Magazines, is part of APN NZ, which also publishes the New Zealand Herald.

The Listener's 2005 audited circulation of about 73,000 was down 3 per cent on the previous year.

Simpkins worked on the magazine's advertising account for more than two years, including as creative director at McCann Erickson.

He said the previous strategy involved selecting six "hero" editions a year and promoting them on television.

Circulation for each "hero" edition rose but the new campaign aimed for a more sustained awareness.

The billboard campaign will run for 22 weeks on the same budget as the six weeks of television commercials.

FCB group account director Justin Mowday said the 13 billboard sites were selected for their prominence. Nine in Auckland and four in Wellington had been strategically placed so people had time to digest the content.

Outdoor Association of New Zealand chairman Duncan Harris said large billboards and prime sites could be hard to book.

He said billboards could be updated frequently, particularly in the lead up to an election, but the Listener campaign was different.

"It's going to be so proactive. I can't think of anybody who's done anything exactly like that."

Outdoor advertising is continuing to grow with Advertising Standards Authority figures showing spending rose 3.2 per cent last year to $72 million.

Overseas, interactive sites are becoming increasingly high tech. Disney's 57-storey "Mount Everest look-a-like", put up in New York's Times Square in February, allowed people to text-message a code to make the eyes of a model yeti on the billboard flash red.

Unilever, manufacturer of Dove soap and deodorant, is running an interactive "Campaign for Real Beauty" using billboards internationally, including New Zealand.

Viewers vote for one of two options presented on the billboard, however figures for the feedback here were unavailable.

Simpkins says the similarity between the Dove and Listener campaigns is limited to the interactive component. "We are throwing up a windsock, if you like, of public opinion and asking people to shape it versus just counting what people think."

Plastered

* The most-liked billboards are about public health, leisure, entertainment, fast food and travel.

* 41 per cent of people think outdoor advertising is a good way to deliver brand advertising.

* 34 per cent believe they have control over which outdoor advertisements they pay attention to.

Source: The New Zealand Post Consumer Media Preference survey