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Thursday, May 09, 2013

Houston stations' billboard war

I love it when radio and TV stations put up billboards. And I really love it when they tweak the competition by putting a billboard up in front of a competitor's station!

The masters of this were the promotions gang at Rock 101 KLOL. From what I hear in the 1980s, Doug Harris and crew put up a billboard with a corvette driving out of it, one with a giant bra hanging on it and even put a billboard up in Dallas with the Runaway Radio logo that said something like, "Not available in this market." I'm sure Houstonians visiting Big D got a kick out of that. Probably made the Dallasites jealous. You'll be hearing more about this in my upcoming Rock 101 KLOL documentary.

Speaking of Dallas, when I started regularly visiting our neighbors to the north in the mid-1990s, I was impressed with their stations' use of billboards.

Back to modern day, KHOU 11, looking to promote recently minted chief meteorologist David Paul, put a billboard up at the heavily trafficked 610 and 59 interchange touting his local roots. Maybe a hiccup billboard is next in the campaign.

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I like it when stations use the billboard to project something other than their brand. Just a logo with a picture of anchors is kinda dull these days. I also like it when the billboards are simple and easy to read while driving. It's scary enough out there on the roads without a billboard distracting you for longer than it needs to.

News 92 KROI also scores with this new billboard targeting us with a clean look and specific message.

 photo news92-billboard2013_zps574b5bce.jpg

I don't get out of southwest Houston much, so if you see a good media billboard, let me know.

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