Important, Concise…Best of All, New Oil & Gas Bumper Sticker is Yours for Zip.

Winter NAPE begins today in Houston – a conference at which millions of dollars’ worth of oil and gas deals are going to be made. Maybe more than that. Maybe billions. Life in “the bidness” keeps on being exciting.

So today, just in time for NAPE, this spiffy bumper-decorator is formally available. Revisiting an idea portrayed here in December, it seems too…adventurous…to leave behind.

This official “God Loves Hydrocarbons” bumper sticker has your name on it (in a figurative sense.) Thanks to major design help by Ken Bullock of Bullock Studios, it looks significantly better than December’s rough version. Now a strong black on provocative yellow, the thought-sticker is flexible, long-lasting – and sure to generate countless discussions in what I am certain will be a civil manner.

It’s even free, as the headline notes. Send me a note, I’ll try to get you one by mail. Perhaps I can collect a stamp or two from you later.

Or just ask for one when you see me. I’m happy to share.

Better than a Pointed Stick, Houston METRO Sends Big Message Down-Track.

I’ve got to go downtown to watch the new red train.

After seeing it pictured in today’s Houston Chronicle, the appeal is irresistible. In fact, for the first time in METRORail’s existence, according to the METRO blog, an entire rail car has been wrapped up with a safety message that’s kinda hard to miss.

Safety’s clearly the point here and the great design helps METRO make it. Stop. Think. And a vertical traffic signal on the red wrap as a visual cue on the exceptionally strong, fire-engine-red-colored background.

You’d think people will see this coming a mile away. But then, you’d think that something as big as a train, even a light rail train, would be hard to ignore in the first place. Drivers do it all the time, though, so Houston has a lot of “highway-rail grade crossing collisions.”

I will also get to see advertising history on the move. Bus, train and rail car graphics are still alive and rolling 100+ years after they started. Even now, transit advertising is widely regarded as one of the most effective forms of outdoor. Steve Strauss, writing about transportation posters in his book, Moving Images, said, “…people are gonna see your poster every day, year in, year out, but only for a few seconds at a time. Let’s get your points across in a glance.”

Coupled with great design, transit advertising can deliver larger-than-life impact at the point of use (or anywhere along the line); build great recall in heavily trafficked urban areas; and put big messages right in front of key demographic groups.

This execution qualifies as larger than life – and it’s great design too. I’ve sent a note to Mary Sit, Manager of Corporate Communication at The Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County, asking about the designer or designers of the new rail wrap. When she tells me, I’ll tell you.

Credits: Johnny Hanson photo from Houston Chronicle. Houston METRO superintendent Stephen Land walks past the new wrapped rail car.

Don’t You Get No Ugly Tractor. Buy a Purdy Kubota.

That’s the headline on a billboard south of I-20 as we drove through Tuscaloosa. It was charming. Imagine the dealer offering that part of Alabama a play on words. “Purdy” had to be the name of the dealership! And at 70 mph, the headline was all we had time to see, along with the photo of a fine-looking orange tractor.

Sadly there’s no Purdy in Tuscaloosa. Not selling Kubota tractors. I fooled myself looking it up: there is a Purdy Tractor and it’s in Hillsdale, MI. Silly Richard. I thought (briefly) MI = Mississippi. Well NOT. This Purdy is in Michigan and offers New Holland Equipment.

I think the briefly seen “Purdy” outdoor must be from Tuscaloosa Tractor, a completely different dealer selling Kubota and Bush Hog products in that neck of the woods for more than 20 years. Too bad. I’d like to have [a] the pun be true and [b] gotten a photo of the billboard to show you. Not to be, though, not at that 70 mph driving speed.

There’s room for beauty and humor in equipment advertising…and therefore no ugly tractors. Anyone in that part of Alabama in a position to send me a picture of this ’board?

Message from Alabama: August 17, 2010

“Yes, it is our billboard sign,” sent Tuscaloosa Tractor Office Manager Robin Jarvis. “Purdy is how one of our salesmen says pretty. We thought it to be comical.”

Not too bad: I only got [a] the headline and [b] the photo slightly wrong. Thank you, Ms Jarvis.

FT Article about Creative Paddy Power Advertising Adds Force to Fast.

The World Cup match was over – France defeated the Irish national team. Two weeks later, on November 25th, Ireland’s largest bookmaker rolled out more than 40 backlit posters in Dublin airport’s baggage hall, each with the headline:

Paddy Power welcomes you to Ireland…unless you’re called Thierry.

(On videotape, it’s appears that French striker Thierry Henry handled the ball which is a major no-no, even I know that. So the Irish feel like they wuz robbed.)

I don’t follow football. I haven’t walked through anything so exotic as an Irish airport. I found out about the campaign in the most neatly crafted seven column inches of newspaper copy I’ve read in years, a small article called “Ad deconstructed” by Gautam Malkani in today’s Financial Times.

Given the author’s writing background, it’s not surprising he’s a fine writer. What I enjoyed was how quickly he pinpointed the main points of these boards’ appearance. First, this is advertising that’s humorous without being bitter – utterly topical and timely. Second, the Paddy Power company got the creative done fast and in place fast: “Following Ireland’s defeat on the Wednesday, the creative was agreed on Friday and the posters were displayed on Monday evening.”

Malkani’s spot-on conclusion is in his article’s last sentence, “…even when dealing with traditional media, advertisers need to quicken their game.”

Quicken the game. Shorten the timeline. Get inside the stakeholders’ decision cycle. All these phrases mean that sometimes it’s critical to get your messages to market faster. Now Paddy Power is a national institution so it’s very well known in Ireland. Still, the nature of its business – sports betting – means attracting topical attention in a big way and right quick too.

We all know creative ought not to be rushed. But once in a while, like at Dublin Airport, there’s an example of nifty creative done really fast. BOOM it’s right there in front of everybody*, even traveling Frenchmen.

I bet you can’t show me that combination applied in our B2B realm anytime soon.

*Average Dublin Airport passengers: 60,000/day. Photo from Betzoo with thanks.

Billboards, Farewell

I suppose it is official, now that it’s been announced: the City of Houston has struck a deal with Clear Channel Outdoor to make 831 outdoor boards “disappear” before the end of 2008. Another source indicates that Clear Channel Outdoor has 4,500 facings in Houston, so it’ll lose 18% or so of its displays. (Is my math right?)

Everyone that could be reached before press time is elated: Mayor Bill White, Ed Wulfe of Scenic Houston, Mack Fowler of the Quality of Life Coalition. Clear Channel Outdoor lawyers, however, could not be reached for comment. Clearing out the “visual pollution” of billboards is part of a renewed national trend.

Elation is no doubt a relative thing. Clear Channel Outdoor is the world’s largest outdoor advertising company: “In the United States, the company operates just under 200,000 advertising displays.” This makes the boards it will remove from the Houston area a drop in its national bucket. In any case, there’s been a deal cut and the company gets some profitable arrangements for its trouble, as you can read from the article.

The deal just affects the Clear Channel Outdoor boards – don’t you be thinking that outdoor advertising’s going to vanish from the city. There are other owners and operators like CBS Outdoor, SignAd, Reliant Media…the deal doesn’t have anything to say about these hoardings.

If you’re a true believer in the evils of outdoor signage, history is against you. Billboards (UK: hoardings) have been around for centuries. There’s a marvelous engraving of “Modern Advertising: A Railways Station” in A History of Advertising that shows outdoor ads for everything from sherry to insurance policies of Ede’s Patent American Eye Liquid – “Every Disease of the Eye Cured.”

That same book indicated that the growth of advertising in general “has been attended by an almost entire revulsion of mode.” That’s in 1874, mind you. I suppose the anti-billboard crowd is filled with such revulsion.

Now I am against your general overall ugly city look. As Houston (especially under Mayor White) becomes greener and more attractive, taking down 800 or so billboards may be a help.

However, here’s my self-confessed that’s-how-I-make-my-living aspect.

A great billboard is a thing of beauty – often a visual delight, like the one above created for Adidas for the 2006 World Cup. Anita Bath blogged last year, “Due to the abundance of bad roadside ads, I typically admire cool, funny, or just amazingly creative billboards while driving.”

Me, too. Because, in print, you just don’t get many opportunities to make people laugh or cry or buy when they’re driving past your message at 60 miles per hour.

Bye-bye, billboards.