M&M's, Breath Mints and Marketing Messages

Feb 28 2001

The first time you walked into a restaurant bathroom and saw an ad, you probably recoiled, especially if the spots didn't shy away from less-than-elevated forms of humor. An ad for the entertainment magazine Time Out New York, for instance, once asked Manhattan's nightlife seekers to consider the entire city when making plans, ending with the exhortation, "And don't forget Flushing."

Now that bathroom ads are common, Minneapolis's Next Generation Network , distributor of video screen advertising to convenience stores, gas stations and elevators, thinks that it's found the newest and ripest platform for out-of-home marketing. Having rolled out ad rotations in more than 6,000 such venues in 22 markets in the U.S., Europe and Australia, the company has a simple pitch. Its goal, in the words of President Tracy Crocker, is to capitalize on "the captive pause" - those precious minutes of the day when "people have nothing to do besides look at their shoetops."

Perhaps more than billboard or radio advertising, checkout-counter advertising offers marketers a fast, demographically targeted buy. And with product placement already buzzing loudly around consumers' heads, it also gives marketers the chance for a quiet space to put, well, more buzzing. But as it plays with its formula, NGN gives rise to the question: Is its approach slyly effective or does it intrude in a way that will further dilute everyone's marketing messages?

About 500 advertisers have bought in so far, though not without some misgivings. "I think the feedback is a little better than with radio or billboards," says David Tetreault, executive director of advertising and promotion for Twentieth Century Fox Television, which bought spots for several of the company's syndicated programs. "But the problem with all [out-of-home advertising] is that you can ask what kind of eyeball and ear you're getting. Do people see and hear these ads and tune them out?"

The research on how viewers assimilate NGN's ads is encouraging, Crocker says. He cites several figures, arguing that "unaided recalls" of advertised brands are a respectable 17 percent, and according to research done by Nielsen, about 80 percent of those polled said they liked the screens.

That may be true, but NGN's method for actually finding those viewers is complicated. Currently, the company has no arrangements with national grocery chains, so the company must send individual researchers to each potential store location to negotiate a package. The deal isn't terribly sweet for site owners: no money up front, and only a 5 to 10 percent share of ad revenue. The time it takes to work with each mom-and-pop store owner may impede rollout, a process that Twentieth Century's Tetreault and others say is critical if NGN wants to become more than just a supplemental outlet. Still, Crocker says that profitability "is on the horizon" for NGN, in part because the service tends to offer a less expensive buy than in the entrenched world of billboards, with its powerhouses like Infinity Outdoor .

As for effectiveness, the arguments cut both ways. On one hand, customers aren't used to seeing ads in a convenience store, which could make them more receptive. They're also, undoubtedly, a captive audience. On the other, there's a possibility for a backlash. Having already made product choices in the aisles, customers might be less amenable to seeing even more touting at the register. And while NGN boasts of 48 million impressions per week , you can't help but raise the quantity-over-quality argument. If marketing is everywhere, is it nowhere?

One way NGN might avoid the noise problem is through additional content, like news and traffic information. "I can buy [the critics'] argument if all we did was straight advertising," Crocker says. "But we're a clutter-breaking medium. If someone may have not had time to read the paper as part of their busy life, then we can help." Among other deals, NGN has a national partnership with ABC News and, in Los Angeles, an agreement with the Spanish-language newspaper La Opini-n.

For all of its flaws, advertisers sing the joys of the program's immediacy. "The big difference between NGN and an outdoor campaign is that with an outdoor campaign, by the time you get the production and creative together, it could take two weeks," Tetreault says. "With NGN that can be a 24-hour process." Hence the willingness of political campaigns to use it; this past November, Hillary Clinton opponent Rick Lazio bought some time in the waning moments of his ill-fated Senate bid.

If NGN, which has signed up several hundred venues in Paris, Sydney and London in addition to its U.S. locations, plans to become a truly broad-based channel, the firm may also need to shift its focus. Right now it targets decidedly lower-end consumers, the kind who are more likely to watch Twentieth Century's Divorce Court than, say, Nightline.

"I think we're moving away from billboard advertising to being ... a real media company that attracts the eyeballs because we have content that people want, the content that's right for someone who is standing in line," says NGN's Crocker.