The best way to get rich these days, I'm convinced, is to come up with an idea that increases efficiency.
Which is why the inventor of the mobile billboard must be swimming in money. Talk about a time saver!
I speak from personal experience. As a busy guy who packs as much as he can into each day, I resent slow-moving vehicles that bog down traffic. And as someone who loves San Diego's natural beauty, I resent ugly, intrusive signs.
Now, thanks to the mobile billboard, I can resent both of these nuisances at the same time.
There's no telling how many minutes I save.
Recently, I used some of them to follow a mobile advertisement around Mission Bay.
I'd spotted the trailer-mounted billboard – at 8 feet tall and 20 feet long, it was hard to miss – being towed by a gas-guzzling SUV through the Crown Point Shores parking lot.
Then I read the billboard's message – advice on being environmentally friendly while visiting Mission Bay. My first thought was, “What's wrong with this picture?”
Luckily, the SUV-cum-billboard was easy to tail. As it circled Mission Bay on surface streets, I followed along, pulling near as traffic permitted.
With one eye on the road, I read its lengthy message – 58 words, four logos and a phone number – instructing visitors on ways to keep the bay clean.
Near the bottom, I found the identity of the culprit: ThinkBlue.org.
The city!
The next day I called the city's Storm Water Department, where the helpful public information officer, Jennifer Kearns, had no trouble appreciating my bewilderment.
“We try not to discourage one type of pollution while creating another,” Kearns said.
I couldn't have said it better myself.
Keeping the bay blue is an admirable goal. But so is keeping the sky blue.
Can't we tell RV owners not to dump their septic tanks into storm drains without burning fossil fuels in the process?
Evidently we can't.
Kearns said the state requires the city to use a variety of media in its million-dollar Think Blue education program and that mobile billboards are a “very, very cost effective” complement to television, radio, brochures, door hangers and “static billboards.”
(Language lovers will recognize “static billboard” as a retronym, a name created when progress makes an earlier name obsolete. It echoes “acoustic guitar,” a term that wasn't needed before the electric guitar came along.)
The company putting Think Blue on wheels, Adtruks, will receive $50,000 this year to drive its mobile billboards around six environmentally fragile locations, from the Los Peñasquitos watershed to the Tijuana River.
If you've been in the Gaslamp Quarter or Pacific Beach on a weekend night, you may already be familiar with Adtruks' work. The company operates the traffic-stopping, eye-catching billboard trucks that advertise major beer brands – Budweiser, Miller and Coors.
Adtruks also leases six “mobile tri-vision ad trucks,” which have rotating signs, three to a side. Previous clients have included my newspaper.
I learned all this from Rod Schaefer, the friendly owner of Adtruks, who said San Diego is a prime market for mobile billboards because we have so few of the “static” kind.
Only a few decades ago, San Diego tried to phase out its billboards altogether, and fought their owners all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Ultimately, a truce was struck and the city instead capped their numbers and encouraged their relocation from the beach communities.
In that era, a few taxis sold ad space, but I doubt anyone foresaw the day when our streets would be roamed by vehicles dedicated solely to advertising.
Schaefer didn't invent the mobile billboard – his 4-year-old Encinitas company is an offshoot of Admobile – and he assured me they're not making him rich.
“We used to make a good living,” he told me. “I must say it's a very difficult market right now.”
Gas prices have cut deeply into his profits, he said, and he can't raise his rates because, everywhere he turns, companies are slashing their advertising budgets.
“We're just struggling,” he said, “along with the Union-Tribune, and television and radio.”
This is the oldest trick in the book, trying to soften up a reporter by creating a common bond. Needless to say, it worked.
My next question came almost reflexively: Got any job openings?
To drive for Adtruks, he explained, you need at least two years' experience behind the wheel of large trucks. When he advertises for position, he said, he gets 30 to 40 calls.
Does he get many calls from people like me, who think mobile billboards distract drivers and needlessly contribute to bottlenecks?
“Surprisingly, they are very seldom,” he said. “We do get a call about every three months, usually on a Friday afternoon. The callers are tired and traffic is heavy, and our truck happens to be there.”
Schaefer said his drivers are conscientious and avoid freeways in favor of surface streets, where their messages are more likely to be read.
They avoid high-traffic areas, such as beach areas on weekends, unless the client specifically instructs them to drive there.
“Individual advertisers tell us where they want us to go,” he said.
A straight line if ever I heard one.
Gerry Braun:
(619) 542-4563; gerry.braun@uniontrib.com
