Mark Castel, National Sales Manager for ADreach, tells Adcom about the company and the effectiveness of street pole advertising.
“Street pole adverts were created to provide a cost-effective means of outdoor advertising,” says Mark.
A focused product range
- Street Pole Adverts
‘Street Pole Ads deliver repetitive in your face exposure on high traffic volume routes nationally’ –claims the company’s website. The company offers double-sided display panels for specific directional messaging to highly-defined commuting and pedestrian audiences.
“One of our aims is to provide a highly effective advertising medium for companies which steer away from extra large advertising budgets,” says Mark. He goes on to say that big business is not excluded from any deals. “In fact,” he points out, “as much as smaller businesses use our medium because of its cost-effective offering, many larger organisations with bigger ad spend make use of this medium for brand awareness and repetitive affordable reach – very effectively!”
Innovation necessary
A limited product range means finding original concepts. One such concept is ‘Exclusive Zones’ which comprises entire intersections. “Clients have exclusive use of the designated area,” says Mark. In addition to the advert, poles are wrapped from the ground up to a maximum of 2.1 metres above the frame.
The company has standardised its ad size at 2m². “We used to offer varying size frames, but different size advertisements littering street poles look ugly and lose appeal. A standard size, we have found, increases impact.”
Dye cut ads
ADreach also offers dye cut advertisements which seem to be taking street pole advertising by storm. “To facilitate this type of advertising for our direct clients,” Mark smiles, “we have both in-house designers and a production team which produce work to spec.”
ADreach offers premium sites; impact sites; and strategic sites.
- SupaLites
SupaLites are large advertising signs at close proximity to road traffic. They are illuminated, double-sided; backlit; 9m²; and erected 3m above the ground.
Finding solutions
ADreach found that illuminating adverts using fluorescent tubes created two immediate problems: unnecessary electricity costs; and inaccurate colour representation. To overcome this, the company had to think outside of the box (literally) and became the South African pioneers in reflective vinyl.
Current developments
In looking for ways to improve its offering, ADreach decided that its current vinyl is too reflective. “This is to do with adverts’ design,” Mark says, “With effect from March this year we rolled out a campaign using different material which we feel brings a great deal of additional value to our current offering.”
Not one to give away trade secrets, Mark is reluctant to disclose specifics. “However, our ads now have a clearer, crisp look, especially with regards to tag lines”. He says the overall effect can be akin to comparing a 300dpi image to a 1 400dpi image.
Repetition works
Mark is adamant that street pole advertising is the most cost-effective and impactful method of reaching a targeted audience. “Street pole advertising enables repetition,” he concludes, “and it’s no trade secret that repetition works.”
Their business is split between agencies and direct clients.
