Takeaways:
Billboards on the freeway work best when they focus on generating brand recognition and awareness. It's hard to buy something or Google it while you're driving.
Far more people will see your billboard than will buy your product, but Porsche use this Silicon Valley placement effectively; speaking to prospective customers directly, at the same time as driving prestige for the Porsche brand amongst other car owners.
Porsche differentiates itself from local competition like Tesla by crisply connecting their core values (speed, competition) to their customers' needs and desires (dynamism, success).
Three Billboards outside Silicon Valley, CA
A few months ago Jess and I were driving the 101 south from San Francisco.
In addition to being one of the *ugliest* sections of freeway in the entire world, it is also home to a seemingly unending stream of billboards.
Company shuttles, tech workers and business executives commute their way up and down the stretch all week, loomed over by ads for SaaS solutions, iPhones, and the next Something Dot AI company.
It's an open industry secret that the primary function of these billboards is as an *extremely* expensive communiqué from marketing departments at tech companies to their own executives. Google’s VP of device marketing is banking on CEO Sundar Pichai glancing up at a massive Pixel 6 billboard and thinking “Our ads must be working; I even saw one on my way into work!"
The secondary purpose of these billboards seems to be for tech companies to dunk on one another:
So imagine mine and Jess’ surprise and joy when - amongst the tech navel-gazing - we actually saw a billboard ad…for a car!
The ad:
It's a billboard advert for the Porsche Panamera; what I would call a ‘classic’ billboard, and I really think that Porsche did a great job with it.
The ad contains nothing more or less than:
Image of product: Car, going fast on a metropolitan bridge
Value proposition: What you get from the product - “More ambition per hour”
Name of the Product: Panamera
Campaign Tagline: “Drive Defines Us”
Company name: Porsche
Logo: That iconic prancing horse crest
There’s no URL to visit, no QR code, and it isn’t particularly Instagrammable - the demographic Porsche want to purchase this car *probably* aren’t on TikTok a whole lot.
And I say ‘classic’ billboard because the strategy for the ad is a pretty traditional:
“Here’s our product, here’s why you should want it”
It’s an appropriate strategy for a well-established product in a well-established category, aimed at a well-established audience (wealthy, older men).
[Sidebar] Some billboard nerdiness:
My partner Jess’ take is that “most billboard ads are stupid and shouldn’t be billboard ads” - they’re too complicated, or trying to be too clever. I tend to agree.
In contrast to Porsche, take this winking Twilio ad, which doesn’t tell you what Twilio is, or does, or what their product is or why you should care. Instead it directs you to talk to someone else (‘your’ subordinate) - implying that *you* are too out of touch to really “get” Twilio on your own.
Who the Porsche ad is for:
Back to Porsche, though. To explain why I loved this seemingly pretty simple billboard we have to start with who it was designed for. If you work in tech or finance or something, it turns out you probably know him.
This ad was designed for your old boss' boss - the hard-charging Senior Director / Vice President - greying slightly at the temples, who has a steely self-confidence that got him where he is today. Despite having put on a couple of pounds in the last few years, he assures colleagues that when he goes running on the weekends he still regularly leaves his son-in-law in the dust.
A few things tell us this ad is for him. First off, the *starting price* for a Porsche Panamera is $100,000, so the target customer is a wealthy guy. Despite gains amongst women for Porsche’s SUV category, customers for performance vehicles are still overwhelmingly male.
Second, luxury goods ads on Billboards or TV (broad channels) are designed to do two things:
Remind wealthy customers why they should buy *this* luxury product over another - in this case something like a Jaguar, or (more likely in Silicon Valley) a virtue-signaling yet still sporty Tesla Model S.
Reinforce to *non-customers* that this luxury product is highly desirable, so that when they see a Porsche they will look twice, think “ooh, fancy”, and the owner will feel good about himself (and his Porsche) as he drives away.
So given this ad’s location along the veritable aorta of Silicon Valley, and the status-signaling nature of performance vehicles like Porsche, it’s a good bet that this ad is aimed at a wealthy male tech executive who values being *seen* as dynamic and successful. He’s probably a bit older, but still ambitious enough to be climbing the corporate ladder.
The insight:
Why did Porsche decide to place the ad here on the 101 with this message? My guess is that Porsche’s decision proceeded from a few different realizations:
Wealthy male tech executives who used to buy Porsche sports cars are increasingly buying Teslas. High-end Teslas like the Model S are a similar price to the Panamera, but win in terms of status by being perceived as luxury sports vehicles that are ALSO eco-friendly and futuristic (ELON MUSK DOES STUFF IN SPACE).
At the moment, Porsche’s electric offering (the Taycan) struggles to compete with Tesla, both from a mindshare perspective within Silicon Valley and practically due to Tesla’s nationwide charging infrastructure.
BUT Porsche can still win on the pure performance side (the vroom of that engine). So, rather than competing with Tesla directly they should double-down on winning with customers who value the more traditionally macho aspects of a sports car; going fast, competing, winning. Until, that is, they can compete in the EV space.
Taken together, the insight is something like “We will win with the subset of wealthy, male tech leaders who prioritize success and personal drive over virtue-signalling”. Which brings us to the ad’s tagline:
“More ambition per hour”
Positioning the Panamera:
The tagline combines two of the purest 'value props' of a sports car: going fast and being (seen as) successful. "More ambition per hour" isn't the most elegant line in the history of advertising, but for an ad that appeals to the more muscular aspects of the brand, the unabashed “More ambition” is probably no bad thing.
Superficially, the goal of the ad seems obvious: Make Porsche drivers seem dynamic and successful.
The ad’s location and competitive context, though - with Tesla increasingly winning market and mindshare - point to the secondary goal: differentiate Porsche’s performance vehicles from Tesla by doubling down on ambition and success. One much-lionized trait in Silicon Valley is constantly striving for impact and self-improvement; relentlessly 'driving' (if you will) for more success. The line “More ambition per hour” neatly connects the Porsche brand to this personal ‘drive’, and bleeding edge of achievement - no accident.
The finish line
Although I don't have their bay area sales figures for that month to hand, I really think the team behind the billboard did a great job:
It’s on a daily commuter route for car drivers - know your audience!
The 'value props' are clear and credible for Porsche - speed + success.
The ad credibly differentiates Porsche from competition like Tesla.
They recognize the billboard as a branding space, rather than a channel for 'direct-response'. The ad is aesthetically clean, and not adorned with the social sharing cues that Gen-X (and older) Porsche drivers have far less engagement with.
Despite personally finding the machismo of ‘more ambition per hour’ a little distasteful, I respect the craft of a marketing team in-tune with their target demographic, and differentiating through a focus on credible core values.
I might never buy a Porsche, but seeing an ad like this definitely reminds me that they’re driven by financially successful, driven people :-)