1. How much information should be
put in a billboard ad?
Prepared by J. Scott Armstrong (details on him at jscottarmstrong.com).
Please inform Scott about errors and also make suggestions (armstrong@wharton.upenn.edu)
Scott has taken these slides from adprin.com, a site that he founded. That site contains interactive versions of these
slides, along with linked references, videos, and webcasts, all in PPT and PPTX format that you can download.

2. Principle for fast-exposure media
How many words are on a typical highway billboard? _____
And how many pieces of information? ____
See the next slide for current practice.
Adapted from AdPrin.com 2

3. WordsInfo
National advertisers 7 1.2
Local advertisers 13 1.6
Why the difference between local and national? We
suspect it is that the national advertisers are more
likely to know the recommendations for their trade
association and experts, who suggest using 8 words or
less.
Evidence on billboard ads
An experiment showed that billboard ads with 7
or fewer words had half again as much brand
recall (Blasko 1985).

4. Based on this exercise, write a small application step for yourself,
and set a deadline, preferably within one week. If you are
working with someone else, share your application plan and the
results of your application.
Adapted from AdPrin.com