Billboards are making a comeback

There’s a new face staring down at us from above I-95.

It’s Dr. Joseph Lamelas, the new chief of cardiac surgery at the University of Miami Health System, who’s become a fresh face on Miami billboards.

This struck me as odd.

When I think of doctors on billboards, I think of Botox and liposuction. But this guy looks serious, and what he’s hawking — minimally invasive cardiac surgery — isn’t an elective cosmetic procedure aimed at the mass market.

Lamelas is the Dwyane Wade of heart surgeons. He’s what the sports world calls a “Franchise Player.” He’s recently returned to Miami, his old stomping grounds. And he’s working to help a team struggling with the departure of a few key players make a comeback.

Like Wade, his image is plastered on billboards, which are themselves making a comeback.

That’s right, the oft-derided billboard is back in fashion. Which seems counterintuitive for a messaging app dating back to the ancient Egyptians who used huge stone carvings to post announcements in public places.

There have even been laws limiting the propagation of billboards. In 1965, the U.S. Highway Beautification Act restricted billboards. Today, an organization called Scenic Miami advocates against the “billboard blight infecting downtown Miami.”

Despite their critics, billboards are the only non-digital advertising medium showing growth, according to Recode Media. In the last year, magazine advertising fell 7.2 percent, newspaper advertising fell 6.8 percent, while TV and radio eked out only tiny gains.

On the other hand, billboards were up a relatively healthy 3.1 percent to $38 billion. That’s likely to keep growing thanks to technological advances in digital displays, data analysis and the use of artificial intelligence to decide what messages to display where and when.

In many ways, billboards are the antidote to what ails the advertising industry. You can’t fast-forward through a billboard. You can’t pay a subscription premium for a billboard-free commute. You can’t opt out. Many of us are commuting 10 hours a week or more, during which we’re a captive audience. We may be listening to the radio, or audiobooks or podcasts. But texting aside, we pretty much have to keep our eyes on the road.

According to an Arbitron study, 68 percent of us regularly look at roadside billboards and a significant portion of us — 37 percent — read nearly all of them.

Thanks to billboards, 58 percent of us learn of an event we want to go to. Nearly 60 percent of us learn about a restaurant we later go to. More than a third of us have been reminded of a TV show we want to watch, or a radio station we want to listen do. And a quarter of us make a note of phone numbers and web site addresses.

The greatest endorsement of billboard effectiveness comes from tech companies. Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Spotify are spending millions on billboards. Netflix paid $150 million to buy outright 35 billboards along Sunset Strip in Hollywood.

Do you want to get in on the action? Google “Miami billboards” and you’ll get links to more than a dozen vendors who can help you.

But remember these tips: Keep your billboard visually simple. Six words or less is best. Be smart and clever. If you can afford it, the more billboards you can rent the better. Frequent impressions are key to advertising success.

And here’s the best way to make sure your billboard will be easily readable from a car several hundred yards away: Print it the size of a business card. Hold it at arm’s length. If it’s easily readable, you’ll have an effective billboard.

And who knows, maybe someone will even write an article about it.

This story was originally published February 1, 2019 at 6:32 AM.