Hundreds of Millions Of Street Poles And Advertising

What do dog owners do when their dog goes missing? Usually, they would print multiple leaflets of the picture of their dog together with their plea for any information regarding their lost dog as well as their contact details.

What’s next? They then would go out on the streets and plaster these “Dog Missing” leaflet on lamp poles or electricity poles. The same is true for other paper ads like rooms for rent, garage sales and so on.

Of course, this paper leaflets are a big nuisance for the pole climbers as they have to remove them first before they can climb up the pole. This is the reason why there are some poles with the “No Posters” sign on them.

It’s a shame though as lamp poles and electricity poles are so ubiquitous. They are everywhere and can even be found in the most remotest of roads. It’s hard to imagine anyone not knowing what they are, what they’re for and what do they look like.

I have an old statistic but it still highlights the ubiquitousness of street poles. In 2019, there were 63 million electricity poles sold around the world according to a 2021 report by Global News Wire.

We could also add that in the developed countries, there is a street pole with the name of the street they identify. In the USA alone, there’s 240 million road segments. As can be seen street poles number not in the hundred thousands but hundred millions in the US alone.

Chances are, there’s a street pole just right outside your house and several on your street alone. As long as there is a street or just a road that people walk by, there’s a big chance that there’s either a street name pole or an electricity pole somewhere.

For me, their sheer numbers is an underutilized asset. Imagine the benefits we could derive from them by putting them to some other use. Another thing we should consider is that passersby pass by them on a daily basis, sometimes on a 24/7 basis.

And passersby do not pass by a single street pole, they pass several of them each day on their way to their destination. They are so synonymous with roads that people who are lost in remote areas would use them as markers for a semi-covered or covered roads.

Street poles may be as thin as about 3 inches in diameter to the average electricity pole which may be over one foot in diameter, but what some of them lack in width, they make up for in sheer length.

Imagine also the advertising eyeballs that they provide especially in busy roads. Just imagine for example a street pole located near a sidewalk of a street crossing. Pedestrians waiting for the traffic lights to signal walk won’t miss the ads on the poles.

Imagine also ads located below a street name pole. If the advertising agencies have done their job properly, any person looking at the street name pole would not only know the name of the street or road but also the business and landmarks along it.

Just imagine a tourist whose not familiar with your place. Naturally, they would be looking at the names of the street for the direction. If the street is long, the tourist must be given information on what they would find if they walk on either the left or right part of the street.

It would be a big booster to any remote business that may be clustered along a residential area. A restaurant on the edge of the street might not be found by potential customers unless the street name pole alerts potential customers.

You might say that they’re not as effective as the flat surfaced advertising billboards who are also prevalent in many of the streets of urbanized areas. But of course, they’re not meant to be alternatives to flat surfaced billboards.

One needs to be a little creative in order to grab people’s attention with ads on street poles. For example, the letters of the ads might not be printed from left to right but from top to bottom. This would especially work best with cultures with just such writing systems like the Japanese.

We could also consider that we could put the ads on narrow and small square or rectangular billboards. We can then put these small billboards strategically such that they face the passersby.

But perhaps the biggest advantage of street poles is that passersby are in close proximity to them and can literally touch them. Ads as small as calling cards or leaflets can be as effective as the big flat surfaced billboards.

Perhaps its this proximity to the passersby which makes street poles very effective for small sized ads. At least in Japan, there are Japanese people who put stickers in street poles to decorate them and people do notice them.

I already stated that street pole ads especially for electricity poles tend to draw the ire of pole climbers as they make their job dangerous. Imagine a pole climber slipping as they climb a pole just because it is littered with leaflets that are pasted only with tape.

This however can be remedied. Imagine if the owners of the street pole like the electric utility or the local government put some sort of a wrapper on the street pole. The wrapper could be as simple as a piece of thin flat corrugated sheet.

This detachable wrapper can then be removed by the pole climber everytime they have to climb the street pole. As for the billboards attached to the street pole, I have seen for example Japanese street poles having detachable clamps which can be removed by the pole climbers.

But this shouldn’t be a problem at all as many countries now used either extendable ladders or a specialized vehicle to reach the top of street poles. Mostly gone are the days when pole climbers have to use ropes and climbing gear to climb street poles.

As I have said, street poles either belong to the electric utility or the government. The electric utility owns the electricity poles while the government owns the street name poles, traffic light poles and any other types of street poles you see on the street.

So, if you’re an advertising company and you plan to market street poles you either talk to one or both of these parties. You could highlight to these parties the potential size of ad space these street poles possess.

You could also highlight the fact that most street poles are underutilized in terms of financial potential. You could also highlight that street poles are sometimes the victim of vandalism and graffiti.

This is because the cylindrical flat surface of street poles are a potential temptation to vandals to damage them or put graffiti in them. I for example noted in my YouTube street viewings of Japan that Japanese vandals tend not to vandalize surfaces with business ads in them.

My theory is that the Japanese tend to respect the property of businesses and Japanese vandals tend to control their impulse to vandalize properties that are clearly associated with businesses including their ads.

From the major streets of Japan I would now go to Las Vegas USA where if you Google Imaged the search words: “pole ads in Las Vegas” you would tend to see a more flashier kind of pole advertising.

Here, the billboards sit atop poles and advertising banners are unfurled along street poles. These are not your street name poles or electricity poles but dedicated advertising poles. I guess the main difference between the streets of Japan and the streets of Las Vegas is size.

Tokyo for example has digital billboards ads along its many buildings and ads and business signs can be seen almost anywhere. In Las Vegas, there is so much street space that advertisers really need specialized large billboards on poles just to attract passersby.

But I would concentrate on narrow and cramped streets for this article as they show more promise to an upstart advertising agency who plans to market street poles as advertising mediums.

An upstart advertising agency can price their services lower because the street poles already exist and they do not command a lot of advertising space. But what they lack in ad space they make up for in numbers so they can be very profitable advertising mediums.

Imagine you’re an advertising agency whose trying to get the local McDonalds in the street as a client. What would you do? If it was me, I would print a small McDonalds sticker icon and state that for example: “McDonalds, 300 meters ahead” on the first street pole.

Then for the next pole: “McDonalds, 200 meters ahead.” I think you already get the picture. This is especially helpful if the McDonalds restaurant cannot be seen because it is nestled along other buildings which could be much bigger.

Let’s take another example, imagine a company or business was located on the second floor of a building. You have already used the abovementioned McDonalds strategy of specifying how near or far a store or business is from a street pole.

Let’s say this time when the people reach the actual location of the store or company they only see a plain building. Chances are, people would tend to be disappointed and walk away. You could remedy this. How?

One way could be to attach an “up arrow” sign together with the company or store name to denote that the business is on the higher level or the building. It’s like a business having an employee on the streets guiding customers to their location.

You as an advertising business may have reservations on using street poles as advertising mediums but the reality is that people are already using street poles as free advertising billboards.

In the beginning of the article I have already stated that personal ads like “Missing Dog,” garage sales or small businesses are advertising themselves on street poles for free. You may say that this is just change money in terms of revenue.

But just imagine what happens during elections. Political candidates literally want to plaster their political ads on whatever advertising space they can get. This includes street poles. And we all know how much money political parties spend on advertising.

As I’m writing this article I’m watching a YouTube video about the streets of Tokyo, Japan and I can say that most of the street poles in Tokyo has some sort of ad on it. I would like to emphasize that the government and the electric utility do not gain any profit from this.

Imagine if the electric utilities and/or the government collected ad revenues from their hundreds of millions of street poles. Let’s say that one small ad is $1 a year and let’s say that each street pole has about 10 ads.

You calculate the numbers. Several hundred million street poles multiplied by $10 dollars. Am I calculating or assuming it right that the electric utility or government could be raking ad revenues in the billions of dollars?

Of course I used the country of the USA as an example. But each country has millions of street poles. The ad revenue per street pole might not be $10 and the amount might not be in dollars but in their own currency.

But still, we’re talking about several hundred millions of ad revenue in a country’s local currency. This is not bad considering that the government and the electric utilities do not have to spend much money to get ad revenue. This is because the street poles are already installed.

In the USA alone, there are hundred of millions of street poles. Other countries might also have hundreds of millions of street poles or a similar number. This presents a huge monetization opportunity for an advertising agency.

Even a small revenue of for example $1.00 per street pole could represent hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars in revenue for the electric utility and the government. This is something worth noting.

You might also like to read the article:

Sign Holding and Spinning Business

A good way for a store or business to attract attention from passersby is by using sign holders and spinners who would direct potential customers into their store or business. Not many businesses employ these kinds of marketers and these is the reason why many people take notice. They just stand out from the normal surroundings people are used to seeing...