It’s a bad sign when . . .

Posted on | July 25, 2011 | No Comments

This is an admittedly bad cell-phone photo from our local arena, the Budweiser Events Center at the Larimer County Fairgrounds (aka “The Ranch”) from a few weeks ago.

However, I took it because, as timekeeper at a local minor-league indoor football game (our local team is “The Ice”), from the 50-yard line in the front row, with good vision (thanks to Lasik a few years ago), I could not read most of the signs displayed over the north end zone. I believe I took a count at the game, and about a quarter to a third of the signs displayed could be read from where I was.

That, to me, is an awful example of serving your advertisers if you are the BEC or the Ice, or if you are the person or business responsible for selling or creating this signage for this event. It may be just part of the overall poor Ice marketing effort, as the team has done a fairly spotty job packaging and promoting their product.

If one of your prime functions in a job is to sell sponsorship signage, or design such signs, the most basic service you can provide is to ensure that the audience will be able to view and clearly see what each sign says. Likewise, if you are a business considering purchasing such signs, it should be your obligation to ask questions and learn about just exactly what you are purchasing, and to have a clear idea in mind what you are trying to do when you spend these marketing dollars.

First in your mind as an advertiser, I would hope, is to ensure that your message is actually readable from all corners of the arena.

Clearly, this is a marketing failure for the majority of these signs, from beginning to end of the process.

I write, on a contract basis, some newsletters — including one for an LED sign company that does a great job of educating its customers and prospects on the intricacies of their sign technology. They cover factors like local sign ordinances, correct sizing, how big characters displayed need to be, how long a message should be displayed, and more — it is clear they care about their customers, and want to educate them to make the right purchase, be successful, and see a return on investment for what they spend on a sign.

In this case, it is clear that the no one in this process really cared about whether these northern Colorado merchants got any return for what they spent on these particular signs, and that’s sad, especially in this economic climate.

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