day 4 :: beyond billboards

Sunday marked the beginning of a new month and our last day of travel through Texas, which, as I once saw a bumper sticker proclaim, happens to be bigger than France.



View Larger Map

The day's trip took us through what I affectionately refer to as the Fauxld West...

...incredibly close to the U.S.-Mexico border...

...and through my very first border control outpost. Of course, being the paranoid person that I am, I grew incredibly nervous upon seeing the sign "All vehicles must stop," worrying that I'd get nailed for not having licensed my dog. Happily, they waved all of the cars through.

Score one for truly insignificant ways of sticking it to the man.

We stopped for the night in Tucson, Ariz., seeing as that's where my Monday morning appointment was scheduled, and met with a view from our hotel room of a true sign of the times in the modern advertising age:

A sight both emblematic of that aforementioned commentary brewing upstairs and a good portion of the following day's conversation with Tom Doucette of the eponymous Doucette Communities.

If I had a dollar for every vacant and/or decrepit billboard I passed during my cross-country drive, I probably could've paid cash for all my hotel stays along the way. Which got me to thinking: The age of billboard advertising seems to be slowly going the way of the buffalo.

Or not-so-slowly.

The fact of the matter is, there are three things that merit a billboard advertisement: Food, fuel, and lodgings—located just off the side of the road beside which said billboard is strategically placed, enabling those on the open road to easily seek out the necessities of travel.

The exception that proves the rule? Notable roadside attractions, those that justify an unscheduled detour on one's journey.

A new-home community simply doesn't fit the bill. Period.

Of course, arguably, a well designed billboard might catch the eye of a prospective home buyer on the commute to or from work... but you'd be hard pressed to convince me that same prospect would go out of his or her way to drive straight over to the community. No, if you're lucky, they'd hop on the computer either at home or the office and google said community to do some online research and determine if it was worth a visit on the weekend.

And call me crazy, but chances are, if they get that far and decide to make the trip to the community, they probably would have made the same decision in the course of their online research with or without the billboard.

Tom Doucette largely agreed, drawing a parallel to newspaper advertising—something of which he steers clear. And for good reason. Print media is in the midst of a recession to rival that of housing, and many local and regional papers have ceased publication altogether. More and more, consumers look to the web to get their daily dose of news coverage. You'd be better off with a sleek and fast-loading banner ad on a relevant community site—or at least an ad in a consumer lifestyle and/or dwelling publication.

Instead of relying on traditional advertising avenues, Doucette Communities has embraced the digital age, jumping on the Facebook and Twitter bandwagon, thanks in part to the help of California-based Focus 360.

To those builders who remain skeptical of such social media platforms, I offer the following words (whether of wisdom or sophomoric folly, I'll let you be the judge):

Will the use of Facebook, Twitter, and other social media as a marketing platform stand the test of time? Your guess is as good as mine. But in the meantime, they're here, and efficacy aside, they're free.

I'm not going to assert that social media interaction will directly contribute to sales. However, by embracing these trends, you stand to develop new relationships with prospects you might otherwise not have reached—and it's those relationships that can potentially equate to future sales, not to mention referrals.

On the other hand, by resisting change, you're effectively turning your back on what could be an incredible opportunity.

If you don't learn to communicate and interact on the platforms favored by tomorrow's buyer, someone else will. And in this market, is that a chance you can really afford to take?