Now What? Ads at the Gas Pump?
by BIG Mike McDaniel
Published on this site: November 19th, 2005 - See
more articles from this month
We are bombarded with thousands of advertising messages each
day. Some are in the most unlikely places; above the urinals
in public toilets, painted on the inside walls of parking
garages and now, on the gas pump handle!
It's bad enough most of us have to pump our own gas. Long
gone are the days when the smiling guy in the mechanic's hat
checked the oil and cleaned the windshield while another guy pumped gas in the tank at a whopping
24 cents a gallon! Now, we do the pumping, and in many states,
we have to stand there and hold on to the pump, because the
auto-fill mechanism has been outlawed.
So what do you do while you stand there? You read an ad on
top of the pump, hawking a special inside the store. This
ad is especially important since so many stations offer pay
at the pump. Without seeing the ad, you may not venture into
the store to pick up the high profit items. Some more sophisticated
stations have small TV screens next to the credit card slot
that present a solid stream of color commercials, some local,
with the speaker blaring in your ear.
But the biggest jump in creative advertising is the pump
handle. When filling the tank, you have to look at your hand
holding the nozzle. And there, on the top, is a pitch for cell phone minutes or a tasty photo of a sandwich
inside.
Radio used to be the only non-intrusive advertising medium.
This means that you could get the commercials while you did
something else as opposed to the newspaper that you had to look at to read and see the ads
or TV that required you to sit and watch. But gas pump nozzles
join radio because you are stuck at the pump. You have to
look at the nozzle. The ad becomes non-intrusive. A time passer.
Something to do while you wait. Like reading the place mat
full of ads in a restaurant while you wait for your order.
There are national and regional gas pump ad agencies that
seek advertisers guaranteeing so many pumps per market. They,
in turn, pay the gas station or convenience store a percentage of the revenue.
What can you do with your business to put your message where
people can, and must, see it? Are you doing everything you
can at your business to exploit empty space to make a sales point?
Grocery stores post their newspaper ads at the door. Many
offer piles of flyers in case you left your coupons at home.
Big box stores have discovered the joy of covering a colorful
ad with plastic and taping it to the floor so you have to
walk on it, and they know you aren't going to step on something unless you know it's safe to do so. Gothca!
Discuss unique adverting possibilities with associates, or
people in your same business in other markets. If you think
about it, you, too, can come up with
something as good at a gas nozzle ad.
http://BIGIdeasGroup.com
BIG Mike is a Business Consultant and Professional
Speaker. His BIG Ideas Group helps business grow with promotions,
special reports, mastermind groups, seminars and consulting. Subscribe to "BIG Ideas
for Small Business" Newsletter MailTo:[email protected]
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