If you’ve had the pleasure of driving down Rivonia Road in Johannesburg lately you’ll definitely have noticed the copious amounts of semi-naked women spralwed on billboards. These billboards are either for Teazers or The Grand, the two large strip clubs in the area.
I did a very informal count of these billboards from the offramp onto Rivonia Road all the way up to Grayston Drive. By my estimation this is roughly a three to four kilometer drive and in both directions I counted five billboards. Now that’s more than one billboard per kilometer! As a random aside there is actually a billboard near to where I get on the highway on the other side of Johannesburg. What this means is that I have to travel past at least three billboards of boobs.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m certainly not complaining about airbrushed boobs but from a marketing point of view I find this a particularly odd practice.
Picture this and tell me if it seems realistic: You get off the highway thinking “Hmm, I want to hit a strip club and the big ones are in Rivonia”. You haven’t made your mind up and the billboards jostling for your attention help you decide between either Teazers or The Grand. Now I reckon no one has logic like that. If you’re going to go to a strip club I imagine it’s a fairly pre-meditated activity and you’re not just going to randomly drive down Rivonia Road and decide there. No, you’re going to know exactly where you want to go and regardless of the billboards, your mind is already made up.
So here’s the marketing conumdrum: why spend tens of thousands of rands every month advertising on your doorstep? Is Rivonia such a sleazy place that people come randomly looking for Strip Clubs only to be swayed by your overly sexual advertising? I think not.
Now if I were either Teazers or The Grand I’d stop the “One upmanship” that they have going on and spend my money on billboards elesewhere. You know, to do something crazy like entice new customers or customers from different areas. Maybe put an advert outside Rhema Church or something like that and spend your money wisely.
I know it’s in most likelyhood laundered money but bring some new clientelle in rather than attempting to lure the smut peddalars of Rivonia.
Enjoy this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed.
Saul those billboards are for chaps like you who drive past them everyday just on their way to work and think “how dumb these guys spending money on this crap” slowly shifting in attitude towards “I gotta see me some titties right now” – it’ll happen: trust.
Also remember much like the casino and booze industries this is a market share game, not necessarily a market growth game that these guys are playing.
And by the way haven’t you seen the grand billboard in Linksfield? They serve lunch ’til 2am can you believe it!
Well let me start by saying, I think you will be very shocked at who are our smut peddalars of Rivonia,some of us might have even put a X next to one of their names not to long ago, my memory is a little scrambled but I think it could have even been this week some time.
Let me first eliminate Teasers from this discussion, ounce you have been to the Grand then Teasers takes a huge back door, the proof is in the pudding, all the top girls in the dancing circle work at the Grand.
Lets get back to the advertising, they are not trying to lure new customers to the Grand, they have been open for years now and if you have not gone to look at the Yummee shaved squirel by now then there is no hope for you guys.
The Grand is actually thanking us for the support the night before and while driving down Rivonia road with your Wife or Girlfriend next to you wondering why your meeting ran so late, you can just smile and look up at the belter with the airbrushed titts that rubbed the best looking ass on your lap the entire night, she actually asks does the car need to go in for a service and you answer NO while trying to keep your left leg from vibrating off the clutch, in my mind I am thinking about the service I got last night. If you guys have noticed the Grand has strategically placed their billboards between the Petrol Quickshops where toilet paper is freely available and quite side roads accessible.
So guys, if you enjoy the toilet paper route and have an extremely favourite dead end, then thats your problem.
I heard they accept cash so no receipts or credit card slips for your wifes, chicks or mothers!!!!!!