Takin’ It To The Streets: Advertisements growing bigger, brighter and taller

Kirk Baird

Monday, March 19, 2001 | 8:39 a.m.

They're everywhere.

In fact, it's reached the point that it's difficult to avoid seeing an advertisement during most daily jaunts through the city. And on the Strip, it's downright impossible.

From the flashing lights of fast-food restaurant signs and the giant video displays in front of hotels, to the larger-than-life pictures of entertainers on billboards and glowing neon marquees, the Strip is essentially 4 miles of advertising.

At best a cultural landmark, at worst a distraction for drivers, these brightly lit monuments to capitalism helped the Strip receive a recent designation as a National Scenic Byway and an "All-American Road by the Department of Transportation.

And in an area so thickly populated with ads, how does one stand out from the crowd?

By becoming bigger, brighter and taller, said John Schadler, managing partner in Schadler Kramer Group, a local advertising firm.

"Las Vegas has always been about one-upmanship, Schadler said. "I think that the use of outdoor advertising and design of these elaborate marquees is very reflective of that sense of one-upmanship. And as the hotels have gotten more elaborate, so, too, have the marquees.

"Las Vegas has always been bold in how it's approached this kind of thing. It's the great midway. It's all about offering your wares to the consumer, and the bigger the better.

But size isn't the only consideration when it comes to ad placement. It's all about being seen, which explains the abundance of ads on the roofs and trunks of taxicabs, on the sides of buses and on benches and transit shelters any place the eye is likely to wander.

The proliferation of ads has even resulted in placements next to ATM machines and above urinals.

Is nothing sacred?

Not to the advertising community, apparently, which has been busy wracking its collective brain to find virgin territory for outdoor advertising.

To take some liberties with the commercial catchphrase from Visa: Advertising, it's everywhere you want to be.

And that's not likely to change, said Myron Laible, vice president of regulatory affairs and operations of the Outdoor Advertising Association of America (OAAA), a Washington D.C. group that represents companies and vendors involved in outdoor marketing (also known as out-of-home media).

A $4.8-billion industry in 1999, Laible said last year's numbers show continued growth as well, passing $5 billion. That means more and more advertising alongside and on U.S. highways and roads, he said.

As part of that trend, advertisers began to rely on ads placed directly on cars, buses and even tractor-trailers. Called transit media, it's a less-garish form of advertising than many of the marquees on and around the Strip.

It's also very popular in Las Vegas, said Tony Preus, vice president and general manager of Eller Taxi Media, a Las Vegas company specializing in transit media.

"The advertising we do helps the hotels more than anything else because of the sheer numbers," Preus said. "It's frequency, and you get that with cab tops. The average tourist is in town for 3.2 days. During that time you may see an ad up to 80 times."

And that repetition, he said, leads to better consumer awareness.

In an effort to extend that awareness, Eller experimented with placing ads on the wheels of the cabs in December. But the technology wasn't developed enough, Preus said, and the ads either were stolen or scratched, while some simply fell off.

Despite the problems with the ads, he said the company plans to test the covers again next year.

"We're trying to be innovative and stick out from the masses," he said. "The more (ads) that are out there, the more (consumers are) going to see and the more they are going to react to it."

First on billboards, then on tops of cars, now on wheels -- when is enough, enough?

"When the hotels and restaurants say they no longer need it," Preus said.

Or, when the consumers reach the point of sensory overload.

But that hasn't happened yet, said Ward Swallow, a psychologist at Mountainview Behaviorial Health Care in Las Vegas. In fact, it's more of the opposite, with drivers -- especially Las Vegans -- becoming acclimated to the sights along the Strip.

And because of that tendency, hotels tend to change the displays and marquees frequently, Swallow said.

"They're designed by their very nature to attract our attention," he said. "The expensive ones are designed to bring our attention from our driving to them."

This, obviously, is not necessarily a desirable result.

"When I come in from California, I see people straining their necks to see the dates and times of what's coming up," he said. "There are some consequences to that."

Even though both Metro police and Nevada Highway Patrol have no statistics to make that assertion, Alan Davidson, NHP public information officer, said common sense dictates the myriad lights, billboards and displays have an effect on drivers.

"You and I know people get distracted looking at the lights and the signs of the hotels, but no one will admit to it," Davidson said. "It's never, 'I wasn't paying attention.' "

For some, especially cab drivers who see the Strip almost daily, there's nothing distracting about the area anymore, said John Witlicki, 63, a cabbie with Desert Cab for seven years until he moved to dispatch.

"I've become immune to it," Witlicki said. "In what respect could it bother me?"

But to most people on the Strip -- especially the 36 million tourists expected to visit here this year -- that's not case. The eye-catching signs and displays are another facet of the Las Vegas mystique, an area that the city uses to its advantage.

"I'm impressed," said Gary Grant, 45, of Houston. "I've never been to any place with as many Diamond Vision (video display) screens. It's what I thought Vegas would be like."

In town with his family, Grant said the bigger and more extravagant the advertisement -- such as the video displays -- the more it caught his attention, as opposed to the transit ads.

"I saw the big, classy ads for Danny Gans and it makes me want to see him," he said. "I see the Lance Burton ads on the cabs, and even though I've heard good things about him, it's kind of cheesy and it makes me not want to see him as much."

Joanna Curtis, 34, of Pawtucket, R.I., said the Las Vegas billboards, lights and video displays were "pretty spectacular" at night, but for sheer numbers of ads, New York and London were more overwhelming.

Still, the advertisements in Las Vegas are more upscale than in many places she's been to, she said.

"It looks nicer here. It's clean, with glitter and lights," she said. "I'll remember the lights."