| BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE : NOVEMBER 1, 1999 ISSUE | ||||||||
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| BUSINESS WEEK E.BIZ -- DIGITAL DISPATCH
Selling the I-Way on the Highway Dot.coms can't get enough of old-fashioned billboards I like gardening as much as the next person. Which is to say, most of the time it infuriates, depresses, and confuses me when my tulips topple or my tomatoes wither or my jalapeos shrivel up and die. But after meeting Dana Jensen, I realize how lucky I am that my horticultural traumas occur in the privacy of my own backyard. When Jensen's garden goes south, 125,000 people a day notice. Jensen is a second-generation billboard guy who works for the big outdoor advertiser Eller Media Corp., erecting and maintaining ads from San Francisco to Silicon Valley. He and his father were among the elite painters who earned their stripes by reproducing decades of Marlboro men and other famous images. But those days are gone. Vinyl panels have mostly replaced hand-painted boards, and these days he finds himself grappling instead with dot.com messages. ''Seems like every board you put up is a double-u, double-u this or a double-u, double-u that,'' he sighs. BOOMING BUSINESS. That's increasingly true wherever you drive these days. E-commerce players are desperate to establish and build their brands on a crowded and noisy I-way. Ironically, for all the cutting-edge panache they're pushing, they're resorting to such kludgy old methods as billboards, which go back to tin lizzies putt-putting past Burma Shave signs. In downtown Atlanta commuters zip by billboards for BUY.COM Inc., websiteforfree.com--and two for CNET Inc. (CNET) within a half-mile of each other. Speakeasy.com's board peers down on Seattle's Pike Place's shoppers. And New Yorkers bustle beneath billboards promoting Trip.com and E*Trade Group Inc. (EGRP) ''Dot.com companies look at offline advertising as legitimizing,'' says Chris Redlitz, chief executive of AdAuction.com Inc., a San Francisco company that holds online auctions for billboard space. ''The perception of a company on a billboard is that it's a real company.'' Certainly their money seems real. Outdoor advertising companies fretted at the loss of revenues when cigarette ads were banned from billboards last spring. Instead, business is booming. The value of boards in the 50-mile Silicon Valley corridor--the great white billboard way--has more than quadrupled in the last few years, as companies try to grab the attention of techies zipping up and down the main artery known as Highway 101. AdAuction sold a three-month Silicon Valley billboard to online broker E*Trade recently for $155,000, a hefty premium over the $20,000 to $30,000 typical monthly cost for boards in the area--if you can even find one. Adam B. Simms, founder and CEO of iMotors.com, a San Francisco-based online used car-shopping service, complains: ''If you want to buy a billboard from San Jose to San Francisco right now, you're talking maybe Q2 of next year.'' HIGH-TECH HEART. For a look at the dot.com billboard fast becoming the Valley's favorite, however, let's get back to Jensen. We're driving along a dirt path with two-foot deep puddles abutting 101 near Redwood City. Jensen pulls his truck up to a rickety-looking wooden structure that holds his baby: a 14-foot-high, 48-foot-long sign featuring live plants growing into topiary that spells out ''garden.com.'' This is, by far, the most complicated billboard he has ever managed. It has its own drip irrigation system, and twice a week Jensen comes out to check it, trim it, tuck new plants in, and--like any devoted gardener--fuss over it. You see, the poor thing hasn't been doing too well. It's been up since June, but it was hard to get the watering system working right. The sphagnum moss into which the climbing fig vine needs to grow is still thin in spots, and all summer it looked distinctly brown. In a rare show of high-tech heart, Valley folks actually worry about this. ''It's such an ugly freeway and that billboard is very refreshing,'' says R. Michael Dougherty, vice-president for the golf tee-time reservation site LinksTime.com Inc. ''Are the plants doing any better now?'' Not everyone is as sympathetic. Another truck pulls up. Two other billboard guys emerge to work on one of the half-dozen other dot.com-related boards out here. They give Jensen a hard time. ''Why don't you just stick some plastic plants in there?'' yells one. Jensen is sweating in his hard hat and the safety straps that he must wear to climb the board. The board's white face can be 20 degrees hotter than the ground on sunny days or battered by 30-mile-an-hour bay winds. Jensen growls: ''No, no, we'll get it going. Get out of here.'' When Garden.com in Austin, Tex., launched its E-commerce site three years ago, Lisa W. A. Sharples, co-founder and chief marketing officer, says she quickly realized the customers who would like quick information, advice, and live plants for delivery weren't necessarily the 30-year-old males who made up the bulk of the avid online audience. So, like so many E-commerce players, Garden.com turned to traditional media to get the word out that it existed. The billboard seems to do the trick. Sharples, a Silicon Graphics Inc. veteran who not so fondly recalls her former six-mile, 40-minute daily commute on Highway 101, immediately loved the idea. ''Online advertising dollars are good for driving site traffic, but offline advertising dollars build brand,'' she says. It shows how competitive getting a board has become that the company had to wait a full year for the right spot. Back on the Garden.com board, Jensen is done with his work for today. It took nearly half an hour to stuff a single small vine into the plastic tubing inside the G's moss and to carefully prepare the plant. But he's optimistic. The irrigation system is finally working right. The A is looking pretty green and the dot is downright perky. However, the pressure's on. Christmas lights are on the docket, but they'll need some lush greenery to wrap them around. Jensen's got a new problem, too: Birds have started perching on the flat part of the D. ''Seagull poop, that's another thing you have to deal with,'' he groans. So much for the sterile efficiencies of virtual commerce. Hang in there, Dana. We stressed-out drivers on 101 are rooting for you. By JOAN O'C. HAMILTON Have a question or a comment for Joan Hamilton? Let her know at joan_hamilton@ebiz.businessweek.com _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ BACK TO TOP |
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