Billboard Advertising and Usability – Best Colors

June 21, 2006

I was driving to work and noticed three billboards in a row where the content of the billboard ad were all quite familiar to me.

I’ll give you one guess as to what set those billboards apart from many of the others along my commute.

The billboards all used a yellow background. Yellow is used on traffic signs (at least here in the USA – pardon my ignorance) to denote “caution”. Our eyes are trained to pick up the color yellow for at least a quick scan. If your business can make good use of billboards to take offline leads online (and most businesses can’t – so be careful), give it a try.

This loops back into old fashioned marketing principles. What gets our customers excited, or what gets their attention? It does not always take shock marketing – sometimes it is just a simple change of color.