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[OOH Focus] Mind the gap: Why street pole advertising might be your missing marketing link

Any advertiser worth their salt knows that above-the-line (ATL) advertising and in-store promotions form an integral part of any good sales strategy. But connecting the two so that all direct effort translates into sales is often a far more challenging story.
[OOH Focus] Mind the gap: Why street pole advertising might be your missing marketing link

A fully integrated marketing campaign can, if effectively planned, boost sales and widen brand awareness. The communication across platforms should feed into each other, laying a perfectly clear path for the consumer, which leads directly to your product or service.

Street pole advertising (SPA) is often the missing link in the marketing chain; which, like a set of strategically positioned dominoes, can set a whole sequence of events into action.


With an excellent campaign extension, SPAs form a conduit between what's happening in the above-the-line communications and the in-store promotional experience.

It's like having your own sales team on the ground, permanently, driving people towards your product.

A simple example - you are watching TV in the evening and see an advert for a great product; however, you are nowhere near a shop, and unless you have a personal driver on call, are very unlikely to get up, out the house to go and buy it.

On the way to work the next morning however, you see three SPAs of the same product you saw on TV last night, indicating that the store which stocks them is actually just around the corner and they are having a promotion.

Just a quick drive 500 meters to the right, you pop into the store and the messaging you just saw on the SPA is echoed at in-store point of sale. Voila! The marketing process has translated into sales.

A prime example of the effectiveness of this type of advertising can be seen in a campaign that the ADreach team ran for the owner of six Spar outlets. The same monthly special was run across all six outlets but interestingly the three outlets that incorporated SPAs in their marketing strategy witnessed the largest increase in sales over the promotional period.

Further, many marketers don't realise that SPAs are extremely cost-effective, and the most successful form of outdoor advertising. In fact, the South African Advertising Research Foundation (SAARF) AMPS for the period June 2014 to July 2015 gave SPAs a rating of 62.4 percent; indicating that more than two thirds of people will remember this form of advertising in comparison to other types of outdoor media.

When it comes to integrating SPAs with other forms of marketing, the possibilities are endless. The link between SPAs and digital advertising is hugely effective, with messaging to drive social media interaction by displaying handles and hashtags linked to campaigns; driving both awareness and interaction.

A holistic approach to media planning can translate into increased sales and improved brand awareness for your business. SPAs are the perfect way to link other forms of marketing and fill the gap between customer awareness and measurable action.

About Steve Jourdan

Steve is the Marketing Manager of ADreach and also heads up the ADreach Foundation. The ADreach Foundation is actively involved with initiatives to uplift communities in the areas of empowerment through sport, developing SMME's through the ADreach Developing Enterprises Project and transforming individuals through the waste management chain with "WastePreneurs". Steve has lectured in Marketing, Sales and Negotiating Skills at the IMM Graduate School of Marketing, Vega and the AAA School of Advertising.
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