Advertising hits the streets with Admobile
When Ken Mehls was ready for a career change last year, he received an opportunity to launch his own business, one he believes will be part of a revolution in mass media.
Admobile of Central Iowa has taken the first of its mobile advertising vehicles onto the streets of Greater Des Moines, delivering advertisers’ messages to thousands of drivers. And though sales of the trucks’ advertising space have fallen slightly below Mehls’ initial expectations, he believes the unavoidable messages being delivered to consumers citywide will entice more businesses to purchase mobile advertising.
“The frequency drives greater recall, which in turn drives results and increased sales and those are the things that businesses are looking for,” he said.
Having been introduced to mobile billboard advertising by his former college roommate, Mehls compared its cost effectiveness with that of other forms of advertising. Television advertising can be hit or miss, he said, as advertisers struggle to determine the appropriate channel and time to reach the maximum number of consumers. One study found that TiVo or digital video recorders will devalue television advertising by more than $27 billion per year by 2007. Direct-mail advertisements are costly, and daily newspaper readership is in a constant state of decline.
Mehls believes the Admobile method may provide a more fail-safe approach for advertisers. Ninety-six percent of Americans are in a vehicle at least once a week, and recent studies of mobile billboard advertising have found that recall rates are as high as 97 percent.
“Everything led me to believe that this is a growing trend in the media as we know it,” he said.
Mehls left Maytag Corp. in 2004 through a voluntary separation after more than 15 years with the company, most recently as director of Maytag Store development. With the safety net of a severance package, he took the leap he’d been dreaming of taking for years – starting his own business.
With his sales and marketing experience, he received affiliate status from Mobile, Ala.-based Admobile Inc., which was founded in January 2003 and now has affiliates in more than 60 cities nationwide, with plans to go international this year.
Mehls ordered his trucks and began to sell advertising space (each truck is equipped with an 18-square-foot sign in front, two 84-square-foot billboards on the side and a 48-square-foot space on the back). He also studied traffic data from the Iowa Department of Transportation that identified the busiest intersections in Greater Des Moines, and developed three “zones” – east, west and south/downtown – to encompass each of those intersections, as well as destination points, such as shopping malls.
The second truck will soon hit the streets in the south/downtown zone, and Mehls’ operations in the east zone will likely be up and running by the first quarter of 2006. He hopes to expand into Ames in the future.
His first truck hit the streets less than two weeks ago in the west zone, which includes Clive, Urbandale, Johnston, Windsor Heights, West Des Moines and Waukee. The predetermined routes are designed for the truck to pass each point along the route at least once every hour, Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
But what’s he delivering in the trucks?
“My response is: I’m delivering an advertising message,” Mehls said. “It does the advertiser no good if the vehicle is parked at someone’s dock or in a back alley.”