Picking A Platform

" After about about 4 days in Lausanne, it was time to move on. The next stop: Amsterdam. After a considerably long train ride through the rain, we arrived at the train station. First impression: Ok, Dutch people have a thing for architecture. The train station alone was beautiful, adorned with bright colored spires and hanging ribbons. I could tell immediately I was going to like this city. We wasted no time and headed straight to lunch. We were famished, and a little homecooked Dutch food went a long way. I had some dish that looked like orange mashed potatoes with thinly sliced meat on top, and it might be the best thing I've ever tasted. Anyway, after a quick meal we headed to see my cousin's biggest advertisement in Amsterdam. He told me it was a billboard, but unlike the ones in the US. I was excited to see more of the city, and luckily for me, his ad was right in the middle of the city. "We're here," he told me. I looked around, seeing only another canal. But then I looked up, and I saw a very innovative billboard indeed. Suspended over the water was a horizontal billboard, illustrating teenagers participating in something called "urbanography." (See photo above). My cousin told me it was new craze in Europe where people leapt, jumped, and basically did gymnastics all throughout the city. He had recruited several teenagers to act as models, and photographed them performing urbanography. He used the resulting photos to market a clothing company. I thought it was awesome, and couldn't stop imagining myself trying the same crazy things in those clothes. With the photos hanging over the water, and smack dab in the middle of downtown, it couldn't be more perfect. I wondered for a minute though, why all the trouble with placement and crazy photos just to model some clothes? I guess it registered on my face that I was about to question this, because my cousin turned to me and said: "If you want to know why and how it works, think about yourself. Your face lit up when you saw it, and you practically ooh-ed and ah-ed out loud. You were drawn to the ad immediately, and you are proof that it works."

Even though it was only my first day in Amsterdam, I'd already learned another important lesson about the power of advertising. To create a successful advertisement, you must first determine how best to reach your potential customers. What platform will give you the best chance of getting the greatest audience? In this case, my cousin did such a great job of presenting the advertisement to me, I forgot it was even an advertisement and just jumped right into the product. By utilizing the natural features of the city (the canals) and placing the advertisement directly in the center of downtown Amsterdam, my cousin guaranteed that hundreds of people would see his ad each day. He found a perfect way to reach people just like me, people who would see the ad and be intrigued. This spark of interest would lead people to investigate the product, and eventually, profit the company behind the product itself. A brilliant idea that reaches the target audience without imposing on them. Who could resist that?