This morning I was up at the University of Utah when I saw a little sign off to the side of a walkway. What really got my attention was that the sign was partly hidden behind the low hanging boughs of a tree. My first instinct was to walk to the other side of the walkway so that I could read what it was advertising; The Ultimate Sidewalk Sale.

I immediately though that it was a rather weird placement for a sign. Why didn’t they put it out in the open where people would see it more? As I was thinking about this I saw several other signs, all partially hidden behind trees, planter boxes, etc. Then the marketer in me kicked in, and it hit me.

The reason why the campus bookstore was advertising in this overt and somewhat abstract way is because it gets attention. This is what I like to call ambient advertising. Place an advertisement in an ambient, somewhat out of the way and unusual place and it is sure to get noticed.

Why is Ambient Advertising So Effective?

Because of the advertisements unique placement, people that notice the advertisement notice it more than had it been out in the open. People tend to ignore advertisements that are slapped right in the middle of their view. On the flip side, if an advertisement is placed in their periphery or in a highly unusual location then they notice and they often think about it.

The more you can get a prospective customer to notice and think about your product, the greater the probability that they will cease being prospective customers and start actually buying.

As I summarized in an earlier post:

Ambient Distribution: This marketing form capitalizes on the fact that people are very visual learners. People see things and then think about what they see. When something they see seems out of place they think about it even more. If a business can get prospective consumers to think about their brands, products or services then they have made a very successful advertising impression. Lately, all the bananas at the local Smiths Marketplaces have had Jamba Juice stickers on them. I have been used to seeing the Dole brand on them, so I thought about it! While this was a new experience for me, it seems to be a trick utilized for quite some time. Back in 1999 Ask Jeeves ran a huge campaign where they put their stickers on more than 15 million apples!