With so much of the country battling winter storms, the idea of a day at the beach is far from the minds of many. But in certain warmer parts of the country beaches are pretty much top of mind. Those are those coastal resorts from Florida west as they prepare to greet the great armies of snowbirds looking to get a break from the ice and snow, bathing suits in arm and kids in tow.
And soon those snowbirds will be joined by college kids on spring break.
With money in their pockets, and with not much to do besides laze in the sun, these tourists are ideal targets for advertisers, and the ideal venue is the beach, where there's little to distract sunbathers' attention.
Beach advertising is far less intrusive than most, and yet if you look closely you'll see it everywhere: on the beach, in the water and even in the sky. It can range from signage to floating billboards to branded umbrellas and promotional beach gear.
To find out how to get your client’s message on beaches, read on.
This is one in a Media Life series on buying the new out-of-home venues. They appear weekly.
Fast Facts
What
Advertising on and around beaches.
Who
There are many vendors offering a wide range of ad opportunities on and around beaches. For this article Media Life looked at Prime Point Media, bbi Display Systems, Photo Sails and Aerial Media Services.
How it works
Beaches are an appealing ad venue to local business, such as gift shops and restaurants, but they also attract national advertisers anxious to reach a moderately upscale, younger-skewing audience at their leisure.
Beach advertising can be on the beach itself, on the water and even in the air.
Ad opportunities on beaches begin with standard signage, typically posters on lifeguard towers and nearby structures or on phone kiosks along beach trails used by joggers and rollerbladers. Another option is ads and logos on beach umbrellas.
Marketers can also distribute branded beach gear, such as beach towels, beach balls, sunglasses and sand buckets.
They can also hand out samples and coupons.
For a recent campaign for Starbucks, drivers manning branded pedicabs drove around beaches in the Los Angeles area promoting a new drink. The drivers handed out coupons for the drink and then offered to drive the recipient to a local Starbucks and back.
But beaches being beaches, they attract of lot of quirky kinds of advertising as well. A vendor in New Jersey offers a service that impresses ads in the sand using a giant roller. Saatchi & Saatchi Los Angeles commissioned a sand sculpture on Long Beach for Surfrider, a non-profit dedicated to preserving marine life.
Ads on the water include inflatable floating billboards that can be anchored at a specific location, say a channel leading out to the open water, or towed up and down a beach area, or set up for just a day or weekend to sponsor an event.
Another option is ads on the sails of sailboats and wind surfboards.
Aerial advertising comes in variety of forms, including banners pulled by planes that circle an area and planes that write the advertiser's message across the sky in smoke. Another aerial option is huge banner ads suspended from helicopters.
Markets
Advertising on beaches is available in any market where there’s water.
Numbers
It's estimated that 180 million Americans make 2 billion visits to ocean, gulf and inland beaches annually, according to the American Shore and Beach Preservation Association.
The group says that coastal states receive about 85 percent of the tourist-related revenues in the U.S.
How it is measured
Ad impressions can be estimated by visitor information from individual beaches. Traffic counts for nearby roadways can be used where the advertising is visible from passing cars. And for special events, such as regattas and beach volleyball tournament, attendance data is used.
What product categories do well
Categories that work well on beaches include personal care products, such as sun tan lotion, as well as food and beverage, beer and alcohol, retail, fast food, insurance, entertainment and banking.
Demographics
Demographics vary from beach to beach, but generally beach-goers tend to be younger than the general population and more athletic. They also skew slightly female.
Making the buy
Prime Point Media handles static ad boards on lifeguard towers and other beach structures, as well as placing ads on phone kiosks. Pricing starts at $490 per month per board for lifeguard towers and $360 per month per ad for phone kiosk panels.
bbi Display Systems provides inflatable floating billboards and offers advertisers several options. They can have bbi manage the entire campaign, or they can rent the floating billboard and manage the campaign directly. A third option is to buy the billboard outright.
Photo Sails offer high-res advertising on the sails of boats and wind surfboards. In the case of sailboats the advertiser can buy the sail and mount it on boat of his choice or contract with the vendor to have the sail on a charter boat. It could be a charter boat that caters to tourists, taking them on daylong pleasure sails. Or the vendor can arrange a charter deal in which the boat comes fully equipped with crew and sails on a route chosen by the advertiser. Production costs for sails start at $5,000, and a month-long campaign on boat catering to tourists costs $23,000, with discounts for lengthier campaigns.
Aerial Media Services handles advertising on banners towed by airplanes and suspended from helicopters, as well as skywriting. A 3,000-square-foot digitally printed banner that's in the air for three to four hours per day over a weekends costs between $9,000 and $11,000.
Who’s already on beaches
Beach advertisers include McDonald’s, Axe, Starbucks, Corona, Mitsubishi, Anheuser-Busch, Absolut, Heineken, Wachovia, Gillette, Powerade, Aflac and 20th Century Fox.
What they’re
saying
“People have told me it’s a unique and cool idea. I was towing a billboard for a guy who specialized in waterfront real estate, and everybody on the beach nearby turned their head.” --
Sam Mandaleris, president of Open Water Displays in Virginia Beach, Va.
Web site info
Prime Point Media
http://www.primepointmedia.com
bbi Display Systems
http://www.bbidisplays.com
Photo Sails
http://www.photosails.com
Aerial Media Services
http://www.aerial-media.com
Beach ‘n Billboard
http://www.beachnbillboard.com
Go Gorilla Media
http://www.gogorillamedia.com
