subject: Bus Advertising - A Primer [print this page] How often has a bus ad caught your attention? That's what they are designed to do, and they are very effective. They are particularly eye-catching if they incorporate the shape of the wheels or windows or doors into the ad. The clever paint jobs on bus ads can be entertaining or disturbing, depending on the images used, but they will almost always grab your attention.
Giant bugs crawling all over a bus will certainly make you pause or perhaps even cringe, and that's just one of the latest images that creative advertisers use to sell their products or services. Bus ads are part of what is known as moving media advertising, and they are effective because of the traffic situations virtually worldwide. You are bound to be stuck in traffic for hours a year not a pleasant thought and creative advertising can often bring a smile to a weary commuter's face.
The nature of bus ads is very competitive, as most advertising realms are, and only the cutting edge ads will keep your interest for more than a moment, if you have seen the same ad before. Marketing firms are forever looking for new ways to make their clients' products and services more visible to the general public, and the more attention they grab, the better.
To be sure, companies will not use bus ads exclusively. You will still see them in the yellow pages, magazines and newspapers, inundating every aspect of our waking lives. TV and the Internet are also extremely active areas of advertising, but firms are always on the lookout for more personalized and newly designed channels of delivery. In fact, you will sometimes see entire buildings painted in ads, and advertising blimps and hot air balloons are very noticeable, but only in the limited area where they are flown.
The United States has thousands of buses that travel through cities and across the country. Many of these buses will make their travels through areas that are heavily trafficked, and the more people that see them, the more effective bus ads are. Bus advertising probably started as a way for smaller ad agencies to reach more of the local public. But now, larger companies, even worldwide companies, use bus ads to reach a greater portion of their target audience. Bus ads are simple in design, and they are an efficient means of advertising.
Bus advertising adds more color to your daily commute, and has designs that are very definitely eye-catching and memorable. They are a more pleasant sight on the city streets than gray or drably painted buses. They are a nice contrast to your weary, sleepy co-commuters in bumper to bumper traffic every morning and evening rush hour. You may not have a need for the particular product or service that you see advertised daily, but if it makes an impact on you, then you will probably mention the ads to other people, who may need the product or the services that those companies market.
