COMPAQ TRIES BUSY BILLBOARD
By Adnews Staff
Compaq Canada of Richmond Hill, Ont. has hit the road with its outdoor advertising. The computer maker has only used billboards at airports in the past, but now it has a large one up beside a busy expressway running through Toronto. The board is part of a campaign that started earlier this month for the LTE 5000 notebook computer, which went on the North American market on Oct. 2. The 20-foot by 60-foot ad, stationed beside the Gardiner Expressway, features a backlit photograph of the computer. The billboard is crowned by a 10-foot by 60-foot pixel board running a variety of messages. Marketing communications manager Anne Sauve says this is a test of the medium. The specific location was chosen because it is a high-traffic location in Canada's largest business centre. "We decided to invest in the billboard because we were looking for an advertising vehicle that would have high impact, thus building immediate recognition of the Compaq name," says Sauve in a release. Compaq is also running interior airport ads, something it hasn't done for three years. The campaign was created by the Toronto office of Ammirati & Puris/Lintas.