August 14, 2006 On the Road, an Ad Landscape That Is Increasingly Familiar By STUART ELLIOTT NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/14/business/media/14adcol.html?ref=business&pagewanted=print WHAT happens when an advertising columnist leaves Madison Avenue and the rest of New York City behind for a three-week, 16-state, 3,989-mile road trip? Well, he gets to experience elements of the consumer culture not available at home, like shopping at a SuperTarget, dining at a Fatz Cafe, filling up at a GasAmerica service station and sipping a Slush at a Sonic drive-in. He notices how the homogenization of the American marketing landscape seems to be accelerating, as illustrated by the roadside signs at Exit 351 on Interstate 65 in Athens, Ala. Every one of the 14 places to eat and drink advertised there, from Applebees to Krystal to Waffle House, was part of a chain. And he finds some surprises along the way. What follows is a look at those unexpected aspects of the trip. MASS CLASS For some time, advertisers have been breaking down the barriers between the mass and class markets as higher-priced, better-quality products become part of the mainstream. The trip helped demonstrate how prevalent the trend had become. Of those 14 chains in Athens, Ala., one belonged to the Starbucks Corporation. It was a drive-through Starbucks, a format that was also found in places like suburban Detroit and Edinburgh, Ind. Larger Starbucks stores turned up at service plazas along the Florida Turnpike and the Ohio Turnpike, joining fast-food mainstays like Burger King and McDonalds. A Starbucks on the Florida Turnpike north of Orlando even shared the service plaza with its mass-market competitor Dunkin Donuts. Also, motel chains that once stocked guest rooms with Breck or Ivory toiletries are going upscale. For instance, a Days Inn in Marion, Ind., provided soap and hair care items with ingredients like citrus and sunflower essences, under the fancy-schmancy brand name of Sol Terre. A placard in the bathroom proclaimed the products to be sunsational daily care essentials that are infused with botanical benefits to brighten your day. Other examples of the trend included billboards peddling high-end brands like Pom Wonderful pomegranate beverages and Rolex and Breitling watches; television commercials for the organic products being sold by Wal-Mart Stores; signs for McDonalds pitching its Asian salads and iced coffee drinks (Cold is the new hot) rather than its prosaic hamburgers; and a lighted billboard for Flying J truck stops that alternately advertised fettuccini Bolognese and propane. HIGHER TECH A complementary trend to the increasing class of the mass market is the penetration of the heartland by high technology. Guests checking in to Hampton Inn motels in communities like Orangeburg, S.C., and Tallahassee, Fla., received cards describing how they were entitled to free high-speed Internet access. There were billboards along highways like I-81 and I-95 offering free wireless Internet or a Wi-Fi hot spot at lower-priced motel chains like Quality Inn and Super 8. One sign on I-95, at Exit 268, even promised free wireless Internet at a Dennys restaurant. Mobile phone companies like Cingular Wireless and Verizon Wireless were advertised on interstate billboards along with beer, cars and soft drinks. A commercial that ran during a broadcast of Meet the Press on WTHR-TV, Channel 13 in Indianapolis, promoted the free classified ads that the station offered viewers on its Web site (wthr.com). And a car glimpsed one day driving north on I-95 in Florida had affixed to the back window, in large yellow letters, the Web address of the drivers page on Myspace.com. (Sorry, the car was going too fast to jot down the entire address, but it included leo and music.) GAS PANGS How do you market gasoline when its price is near or at record levels? Very sparingly. A paucity of gasoline ads during the trip suggested that when drivers were obsessed with the cost of filling up, the oil companies had decided it was not worth spending much on brand or image campaigns. Exceptions included a billboard for Citgo, carrying the theme Fueled by Citgo, and banners at some Shell stations for its premium V-Power brand. The lowest gasoline prices were not always at the no-name service stations. The cheapest gas bought during the trip made in a car that takes premium was at an Exxon station on I-65 at Goodlettsville, Tenn., at $2.96 a gallon. The same station had regular for $2.76 a gallon. By contrast, some of the highest prices were spotted at Murphy USA and Pilot stations. (For those wondering, the most expensive gasoline price seen on the trip was at a Mobil station at Exit 129 on I-95 in Florida: $3.40 a gallon for premium.) And for all the recent ads promoting ethanol from automakers like General Motors, it was nowhere to be found. None of the 17 service stations visited for fill-ups sold it, nor were signs for ethanol or gasoline-ethanol mixtures visible at service stations passed along the way. CHURCH PITCHES There may not have been much gasoline marketing on the road, but there was certainly a considerable amount of marketing for religion. Get connected, urged a billboard on I-65 in Birmingham, Ala., for Grace & Truth, a Christ-centered church. The churchs message took up about a third of the sign; the other two-thirds was covered by a Coca-Cola logo. Another billboard read: The narrow road leads to life eternal. The broad road to hell. Which road are you on? (It was I-75, south of Gainesville, Fla.) And a sign on the Florida Turnpike declared, One nation under me and was signed, God. Some religion ads also carried anti-abortion messages. The backs of trucks from Covenant Transport bore these words: It is not a choice. It is a child. And billboards on I-75 in Florida, illustrated with photographs of babies, read: Gods greatest gift! Pregnant? Need help? 800-848-LOVE. There were, to be sure, more traditional religion ads, in the form of message boards in front of local churches. Draper Valley Pentecostal Holiness Church, on I-81 in Virginia, offered this thought: Free trip to heaven. Details inside. Shiloh Baptist Church, on United States Route 21 in South Carolina, asserted: Hells hotter. No air-conditioning. One advertiser, which did not identify itself, borrowed the language of religion for an environmental pitch. Four signs in Georgia, near Exit 76 on I-95, presented a line-at-a-time poem in the manner of the old Burma-Shave highway ads: When you breathe fresh air Get down on your knees And thank the farmers Who grow the trees ================================ George Antunes, Political Science Dept University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204 Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927 antunes at uh dot edu Reply with a "Thank you" if you liked this post. _____________________________ MEDIANEWS mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
