This year, Adcorp Media Group proudly celebrates 20 years of serving the local business community through innovative advertising and media solutions.

What started as a small business with a simple mission—to help local businesses connect with their communities—has evolved into a trusted marketing partner serving businesses and agencies and their clients, of all sizes. Throughout the years, we have remained committed to delivering targeted advertising opportunities that generate real results

For two decades, Adcorp has worked alongside business owners, providing effective marketing strategies, creative advertising campaigns, and media opportunities designed to increase visibility and drive results.

It’s Personal

As a locally owned and operated company, we understand the unique challenges and opportunities facing small businesses. Our success has been built on strong relationships, personalized service, and a commitment to helping our clients reach their goals.

At Adcorp, we take your business personally…because we know that you do.

We believe in conversations, communication, having discussions (a lost art in today’s world of technology and data mining, and so on…). Rather than telling our customers what to do, we team up with them to identify ways to help them grow their business.

Our business has succeeded based on teamwork, so we practice what we preach and team up with our clients, getting ‘personal’ with them in order to identify the right business solution (we have even hugged a few of our customers over the last 20 years).

“We are incredibly grateful to our clients, supermarket partners, and community for their support over the last two decades,” said President/Owner Peter Broccole. “Their trust has allowed us to grow and continue doing what we love—helping local businesses succeed.”

Looking to the Future

Over the past two decades, Adcorp Media Group has witnessed tremendous changes in the advertising landscape, consumer behavior, and media platforms and technology while maintaining its focus on community-based marketing.

By combining traditional in-store advertising with innovative media solutions, we will continue to offer our customers unique ways to engage shoppers throughout their shopper journey.

As we celebrate this 20-year anniversary, the team at Adcorp Media Group looks forward to building on our legacy of service, innovation, and community connection.

Here’s to 20 years of local connections, community partnerships, and business success—and to the exciting future ahead. We look forward to working with you.

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QR codes (quick response codes) are widely used in outdoor advertising because they bridge physical ads and digital experiences. They let people instantly scan a surface—like a billboard, poster, supermarket ad or digital screen—and be taken to either a web page, which can offer online ordering, product info, or information on how to contact a person/business, or can be a lead-generating page with the purpose of collecting consumer data.

Here are the main ways QR codes are used in outdoor advertising:

Driving instant traffic to websites or landing pages

A common use is sending users to a specific webpage:

Product pages
Event registration pages
Discounts or Coupons
Contact Information

Enabling quick purchases:

QR codes can link directly to:

E-commerce product listings – ‘Shop Now’
Limited-time offers
App download pages

Enhancing engagement with interactive content:

Instead of static ads, QR codes can unlock:

Augmented reality (AR) experiences
Videos or behind-the-scenes content
Interactive brand storytelling For example, scanning a billboard might launch a 3D product demo.

Collecting user data and leads

Advertisers use QR codes to:

Sign users up for newsletters
Collect contest entries
Run surveys or feedback forms

This helps advertisers convert anonymous views into identifiable, potential leads.
Benefits of QR Codes in OOH Advertising

Measurable Performance for specifically created landing pages

Advertisers can track:

Number of scans
Time of scan
Geographic location
Device type
Conversion rates

This helps connect physical advertising exposure to measurable analytics

Improved Consumer Engagement

Instead of asking people to remember a URL or phone number, QR codes provide immediate access to content or an individual.

Dynamic Content

A single QR code can redirect to different content over time as backend content gets revised, allowing campaigns to be updated without replacing physical advertisements.

Cost-Effectiveness

Generating and printing QR codes is inexpensive as there are free, online tools to help with creation.

Best Practices

Keep the Destination Mobile-Friendly

Most scans come from smartphones, so landing pages should load quickly and display properly on mobile devices.

Include a Call to Action/Caption

Tell people what they will receive by scanning:

“Scan for 20% off”
“Scan to watch the trailer”
“Scan to enter the contest”
“Scan for more information or for direct contact”

Ensure Visibility

The QR code should be:

Large enough to scan easily
High contrast
Positioned where users can access it safely/easily

QR codes have transformed OOH advertising by making traditionally passive media interactive. They enable advertisers to connect physical ads with digital experiences, gather contact data for lead information, and create more engaging customer journeys. As smartphone adoption remains high, QR codes continue to be one of the most practical tools for linking offline exposure to online action.

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Maximize Your Outdoor Advertising Design with the 50:40:10 Rule

Designing effective out-of-home advertising isn’t just about making something big—it’s about making something instantly engaging, understandable, and memorable – a tall order but achievable if approached correctly.

Start with ruthless simplicity. A strong outdoor ad typically communicates one idea, not several. Think of iconic campaigns like those from Nike or Apple—they rely on minimal text and a single, striking visual. If someone can’t grasp your message in 3–5 seconds, it’s too complicated.

Clarity matters more than cleverness. Use large, legible fonts and high contrast between text and background. Avoid long sentences; a short headline (5–7 words max) paired with a bold image works best. Your viewers shouldn’t have to figure it out.

Visual hierarchy is your backbone. Guide the eye:

First, the image – Using a large “hero” beauty shot can be extremely effective in outdoor advertising. The image has to carry the message almost by itself because the visual should do the heavy lifting in communicating your end benefit to the viewer. Scale and composition matter more than usual. Your subject should dominate the frame—often 50% of the space. The image should be accompanied by a simple, straightforward headline. The message should be understood at a glance.

Second, your call to action should tell the viewer what to do – call, visit, scan, go to your website. Make it easy for them to know how to contact you.

Third, minimal text information is an important principle in out-of-home advertising. Short messages are easier to process and retain. This medium is designed for instant consumption, not reading.

And last, but most important, branding should be subtle but unmistakable. Your logo or brand colors should be present, but not overpower the message. The goal is recognition, not clutter.

These principals are for both print and digital ad design. Your ad should maximize viewer engagement, so make it simple and memorable. Humor, surprise, or a bold visual twist can make people remember your ad long after they’ve passed it. But don’t sacrifice clarity for creativity—if the joke takes too long to land, it fails.

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As technology continues to progress at a faster rate than ever, certain technologies are the ‘shiny new toy’ one day, then gone in an instant; one of those being the invention of the QR code.

A QR code (abbreviated from Quick Response Code) is a more complex version of a barcode. You’ve seen them – they are those little black and white squares with squiggly dots and dashes inside and are featured on business cards, ads, postcards, etc.

QR Codes are similar to the standard bar codes except QR codes can contain much more information than traditional barcodes when they are scanned.

When the QR code image is scanned, it is ‘read’ with the help of a smartphone app. The image can be coded to redirect a customer to a website or provide some sort of information that the customer can then save.

Initially, the QR code was expected to be a major success for customers and marketers alike. It was one of the first technologies to easily link the real world to the digital world. But, here was the problem…because it requires an app in order to read it, it became more of a nuisance than a help. Consumers had to first download a QR code scanner app to their phone. And, once scanned, content was sometimes unreadable by the scanner so, it proved to not be an easy, enjoyable user experience. As a result, QR codes never became the favorite marketing tool that businesses had hoped.

Enter…Apple.

On September 19, 2017, QR codes exhibited a re-birth in usage with Apple’s introduction of the IOS 11 operating system for all iPhones. The QR code scanner came built into the camera.

QR codes are starting to pick up momentum among the mobile-search crowd – and marketers are beginning to ride the wave with creative ideas on how to incorporate them into their advertising, with options of what kind of information they will feature.

Their rebirth has led to new, QR-style names like Snapcodes (from Snap Chat), Spotify Codes, and Messenger Codes (from Facebook) – all offering a much improved, hip sense of style and branded design, but the concept is the same.

Since marketers are now having to change their campaign strategies to adapt to the fact that consumers spend most of their time on mobile devices, QR codes are the perfect tool to deliver info right to the customer, in real time.

For marketers, QR codes allow ads including print display, posters, billboards – to ‘come to life’ with information by directing users to mobile sites and other information and interactivity – much more than can be featured on the printed page or in a video.

This seamless integration of print and digital adds a new, interactive dimension of communication to any marketing campaign.

Major U.S. businesses that have begun using QR codes in advertising and promotions include Best Buy, Ralph Lauren and Pepsi.

There are numerous ways that QR Codes can be used:

A local business displays a QR code with a link to their website page with customer reviews and coupons.
A real estate agent might use a QR code on a listing which takes the user to a virtual tour of the property.
A fitness center includes a QR code that links the user to location page or display of classes.
A restaurant includes a QR code on a takeout menu, which links to a mobile restaurant website for online reservations, orders and interactive directions.

Key Considerations for Proper Use of QR Codes in your Advertising

In order to utilize QR codes strategically in communications advertisers should consider a clean, un-cluttered ‘billboard’ style ad. Include some direction to encourage users to scan the QR code. It may also be helpful to provide some information about what users can expect to find after scanning code (i.e., ‘scan this code for a special offer or coupon…’). If the QR code sends a user to a web page, make sure the web page is mobile-friendly. Lastly, since QR codes offer tracking of your marketing campaign you can track the number of scans over time which helps to better understand engagement and overall success. This is of importance for those campaigns of a promotional nature.

So now that Apple has helped marketers by allowing them to add a simple ‘tool’ to their marketing toolbox, consider including a QR code into your print or digital billboard advertising and leverage the new ‘smart nature’ of those billboard ads.

Scanning codes will soon become as natural as speaking to Siri bringing a variety of new ways to interact and share information with your customer. The old QR codes of the past have come back as the new wave of the future. Today’s marketers are putting their spin on them and they are now very much a part of the future.

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However, it’s more than just finding the right media for your audience, it’s understanding the media, and where and how your audience is interacting with it to help determine ‘what to say’ and ‘how to say it’.

While the agency account teams and brand managers write and re-write creative briefs, once it gets into the hands of the designer, that’s when the words come to life. Remember though that ad design that works in print may not translate well to video or to out-of-home. Each media vehicle has its own nuance.

Adcorp offers out-of-home, in-store supermarket advertising media programs to our customers, and have been doing so for over 10 years. It’s our ‘thing’, and like the old KFC jingle…’We do OOH right’.

Not only are our out-of-home print and digital in-store programs effective, targeted advertising vehicles, we also have a design team that knows this medium and what works best in terms of effective, engaging design and have worked, successfully (read: patiently) with our customers to help them understand what design techniques work best.

This blog is a first in a series of tips compiled from our strategists and designers to help other designers and clients using this medium to understand the best approach and design aspects for out-of-home advertising.

First, let’s start with Strategy…

Tips For Developing a Great OOH Creative Strategy

More often than not, out-of-home media serves as a branding tool to generate awareness of your brand, and what it stands for.

That said, here’s what you need to know to make your ad effective and engaging.

Think about your business

Identify your strengths and let them shine! Think about your business in a more abstract way. It may help to try to view your business from the point of view of your customers/clients. What is it about your business that makes your clients choose you? What makes you different from the competition in your area? How do you want customers to feel about your business after they view your ad – what’s the ONE THING you’d like them to remember about your business.

Think about the space

OOH advertisements are everywhere, and we engage with more ads out of our home than ever before! Where will your ad be featured? Is it a static print ad or a video/motion graphic? Think about where your ad will be and try to connect to the people passing it. Visit the location where your ad will be featured. How will your target be engaging with your ad.

Focus on a single message

Choose one main point that you would like to convey to your audience and stick to it. Focus on the one thing that makes your business stand out from the competition and shows the end benefit of choosing you, specifically. The benefit of your service may be the same as your competitor so think about the end-end benefit that is unique to you, something that may garner an emotional response (trust, safety, experience) vs. price, customer service, etc. The ad itself is to get them interested in you and to show how you differ. Make the message relevant to them.

Keep it simple – Less is more

It is most effective in this medium to keep the information about your business ‘short and sweet’ and to the point. Try not to be too clever or funny. If it takes too long for your audience to figure out what you are saying, you’ll lose them. Too many messages will only confuse a viewer and may end up ultimately taking away from your message rather than adding to it. It is important to keep it focused on that one central message. Since OOH media typically serves as a branding tool, steer away from elaborate messages and KISS ‘Keep It Simple, Stupid.’

So, embrace the thoughtful artistry of a simple design. OOH is not like standard print advertising which gives the user time to read the ad and digest the message. Typically OOH ads are placed in hi-traffic areas so the simple message repetition is what will build the branding message.

Remember, you only have a few seconds to capture a potential customer’s attention and an engaging, stunning image will capture their attention, and a concise, simple message will register your business name, and the benefit of your service. A clean, simple ad can do all those things at once.

Next in our series of ‘Design Tips for Effective OOH Advertising’ our designers will address the specifics of ad creation.

The post Strategy and Design Tips for Effective OOH Advertising appeared first on Adcorp Media Group.

Seasonal forecasting is important for businesses in order to know when they must prepare for rises and falls in their sales cycles. No matter the month, it’s necessary to understand seasonality in order to remain competitive throughout the year. Planning for the calendar year is a good way to research and understand what opportunities will allow you to speak to your target audience and build and maintain awareness of your business. Marketing and advertising opportunities typically require lead-time so planning early will allow you to capitalize on them.

Right now, most media businesses are selling for the January advertising season. For example, businesses that experience a great amount of influx in January include pre-schools, camps, gyms, health centers, and personal trainers (due to hopeful resolutions made in the new year)! Don’t forget about tax season! From January to April, financial businesses experience their busiest time of the year. Even the real estate business is starting to heat up with the impending spring selling season. These businesses should be identifying and planning for media opportunities that will appear in January and the first quarter of the year.

Even if your business is not affected by seasonality, make it a point to maintain visibility and engagement with your customer base throughout the year. Be creative about finding ways to stay in touch with them all year round. It’s a great way to turn one-time customers into repeat clients.

Advertising can be your most powerful tool in building brand awareness. And, if your business is affected by seasonality (both negative or positive impact), then it’s imperative to increase that awareness throughout that time. For local businesses, hyper-local and targeted advertising like in-store supermarket advertising is an extremely effective way to get your message (seasonal or not) in front of your local prospects.

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According to the Outdoor Advertising Association of America, OOH advertising is now a $29 billion market in the US and is responsible for approximately 6 percent of the $500 billion global advertising spending, outweighing TV advertising. Its revenue is expected to grow by 3 to 4 percent per year over the next five years to reach $33 billion by 2021 in the US.

As part of its increasing importance in the media mix, OOH market share has increased from 8 percent to 10 percent of traditional media advertising spending, which includes TV, print, radio, among other categories. Given the fragmented viewing habits of consumers and the fact that they are always on the move, it’s no surprise that OOH media is playing a more important role in media plans.

Supermarket advertising is one type of OOH media and refers to out of home media placement in the supermarket arena. Given the hyper-local aspect of this particular media, local and regional business utilize this media often so they can target shoppers in a specific zip code or DMA since those are the prospects most likely to utilize their services. National advertisers, specifically CPG brands, use this media since the advertising is at the store level, right at the point of purchase yet can also be an effective vehicle for generating an immediate purchase or long-term branding.

Forbes states that 70% of purchase decisions are made in-store by consumers; and it makes sense since shoppers spend an average of 41 minutes per visit, and go often, sometimes 2-3 times per week, so supermarket advertising offers not only exposure to the shoppers, but repetition as well, resulting in saturation of its message to the shopper.

Types of Supermarket Advertising

There are several media formats that represent in-store supermarket advertising including print and digital:

Supermarket Advertising Print formats include:

Shopping Cart Advertising
Placed on either the baby seat or front of the cart, Shopping carts provide continuous advertising throughout the entire duration of a consumer’s shopping trip.

Welcome Center
The Welcome Center is typically placed at the entrance/exit of the store. The fixture distributes weekly circulars and complimentary cart wipes and offers up to 8 square feet of advertising.

Market Information Center
Located inside the entrance or exit vestibule of the store, the Market Information Center provides advertisers with large-scale advertising. With up to 16 square feet of space to deliver an advertiser’s message.

Ad Bench
Ad Benches can be found outside the supermarket entrance, inside the interior vestibule or across from the checkout aisles. Benches are another classic in-store media format as they provide advertisers with the opportunity to deliver their message on a 2’ x 8’ banner.

Receipt/Register tapes
Register tape advertising places your advertisement on the back of a receipt, typically in the form of a coupon. Customers must receive their receipt after checking out.

Shelf Talkers
Shelf display advertisements are found promoting new deals or brands on product shelves.

Floor Graphics
Displays can be found on the floor of the supermarket.

Separately, in-store Radio Advertising is an option for advertisers to reach shoppers. An in-store Radio Network delivers your message to shoppers through targeted in-store radio programming. Your radio commercial will reach every shopper, everywhere in the store.

Digital and Broadcast Innovations

The latest and most innovative programs in OOH in-store supermarket advertising are the new digital formats. Today’s digital out of home offers new technologies, new formats, and more creative thinking to help advertisers take their message further. The industry has embraced innovation in all parts of the business to keep pace with where advertising and the consumer are headed.

In supermarkets, we see high-definition digital screens are placed in high-traffic areas throughout the supermarket allowing for an advertiser’s message to reach consumers directly at point-of-purchase and often where there is dwell time breaking thru the clutter, and holding people’s attention. Food courts, deli and app areas, entrance/exit and in the checkout/register area are all locations for digital. Here are two of the newest programs…

MarketVision Network network is a bank of screens (anywhere from 8-12 HD screens) placed right at checkout delivering an advertisers message to a captive audience. Branded content featured on the network offers programming that is entertaining and engaging, along with the video advertising on screen.

MarketVision Kiosk digital displays are strategically placed in the deli/app and perimeter departments which are heavily trafficked area where there is dwell time, allowing for maximum exposure and engagement of a brand’s message to the shopper. The innovative, state-of-the-art HD displays attract attention through rich, dynamic motion graphics.

Any combination of OOH supermarket strategies including print display and broadcast products allows an advertiser’s message to follow the path of the shopper for maximum message exposure.

Advertising to supermarket shoppers is an effective tool in any brand’s marketing mix. Multiple campaigns and platforms can combine strategies to create a marketing plan that reaches a wide, yet targeted audience to build brand awareness with a goal to increase sales.

The post OOH In-Store Supermarket Advertising appeared first on Adcorp Media Group.

It’s not about reaching more people, it’s about reaching the right people, and for local businesses, it’s the Power of Local Connections.

The power of your brand relies on your ability to focus and craft a marketing message that will convert prospects into customers.

The need for marketing and media efficiencies in terms of reaching your best prospects at an affordable price is critical for today’s local businesses. Cutting through the competitive clutter so more consumers think of you, FIRST, will help you build your brand and your customer database.

That’s where advertising, specifically local advertising comes in – having people think of you, instead of your competition, and to think of your service more often.

Local, in-store supermarket advertising can do just that. At Adcorp Media Group all of our marketing efforts are centered around the supermarket where your local prospects go. You know your target audience, and we have them! (Unless they don’t have to eat and feed their family!)

More people, spend more time, more often in supermarkets than they do anywhere else and in-store advertising programs are the best solution.

There are three distinct elements to effective advertising: Exposure, Repetition, and Targeting.

Our local, in-store supermarket advertising programs can do these three things more effectively than anything else you can buy, here’s how…

Exposure:

If people don’t see or hear your ad, they can’t respond to it. Not only are consumers going to the grocery store, but they are spending an average of 41 minutes per trip there.

And, according to the Outdoor Media Association, consumers are 2.5x more alert when they are out, than at home consuming media.

Plus, our print and broadcast media are strategically placed so shoppers have no choice but to see them.

Repetition:

If your ad isn’t seen or heard often, then people won’t remember it. Shoppers hit the supermarket almost twice a week and our markets see an average of 25,000 shoppers per week.

Targeting:

Shoppers shop multiple channels however, 85% still almost always shop at a regular/full-service supermarket. In spite of the growth on online/delivery services like PeaPod and FreshDirect, the supermarket is the venue of choice. And, these shoppers are going to local supermarkets, in your local target market area, which makes supermarket advertising a great way to reach your potential customers.

That said, one of the benefits of our in-store supermarket programs is you get to pick the store that makes the most sense for your business.

When these three elements of effective advertising are present and working together, the result is Brand Recognition. And if people think of you first, they are more likely to choose you over the competition.

Again, that’s how ALL advertising works. We just happen to be able to accomplish this for you better than any other local advertising media with our in-store supermarket advertising print and broadcast programs.

The post Supermarket Advertising Effectiveness appeared first on Adcorp Media Group.

As business owners, everything is personal when it comes to our business. We are 110% vested – our time, our money, our reputation, you name it. After all, we were so passionate about something (a product or a service) that we gave up that cushy salary and risked it all by going out on our own – and all was right with the world. We’d offer a great product and/or service and be recognized for the wonderful work that we were doing. That was until social media and review sites took the liberty of bursting our bubble and then, BOOM. You come across a post on the internet where someone has bashed your company.

While I get the fact that customers are going to complain and will use social platforms to post their complaints, the issue for me really is which ones are ‘legit’. Sometimes you have no idea who these people are that are posting something about your company.

The question becomes, how do you respond? Do you respond? Should you get into an electronic tete-a-tete? Is it better not to say anything? After all, an ‘attack’ on your company becomes a ‘personal’ attack on us.

Social media can be an empowering channel for customers and gives many of them a voice, often anonymous, that they would not otherwise have. But, for every valid complaint, there are the ‘fake’ complaints – people who have never been our customers posting untrue, crass comments about companies and, in some cases, their employees. What makes it harder is that since they may not be legitimate customers, there is no way to contact them to validate the complaint and resolve the dispute.

Recent studies suggest that online reviewing is a broken system. For example, researchers at Yale, Dartmouth and USC have found evidence that hotel owners post fake reviews to boost their ratings on the site – and might even be posting negative reviews of nearby competitors. What’s disconcerting is that for the consumer who is searching for companies that provide a certain service, these online reviews (valid or not), provide insight on a company and how they do business.

As a result what we, as business owners, need to recognize is that social and digital media should play a unique and increasingly important role in protecting both our reputation, our businesses brand equity, and customer loyalty since today’s socially savvy customers trust online reviews more than any other form of advertising. Therefore, we too need to find ways to use these venues as a means to uphold our reputation.

So what is a business to do? I suggest to (at the very least) create an online reputation management strategy. Ours involved applying for accreditation by the Better Business Bureau. Since we take great pride in how we operate our businesses and treat our customers, having BBB Accreditation is just one more way we can demonstrate to our customers (current and potential) our commitment to customer satisfaction and to our brand promise. (even though we take it personally, it’s always all about the brand!)

The BBB serves as another online review forum for our customers. Complaints registered by a company on the BBB are ‘real’ complaints made by ‘real’ customers. For us, this allows us to respond and resolve the dispute (BBB is available to mediate if we cannot work it out) and both the complaint and resolution is posted on our company page on the BBB website. It’s all about being transparent.

Not all companies are accepted by the BBB, and those that do must operate with integrity to keep their accreditation, and this makes it more meaningful to potential customers.

For us, becoming accredited and featuring the BBB logo on our website and other materials gives us the opportunity to showcase our level of commitment to being a company that our customers can trust – thus staying true to our brand promise (and personally, it makes me feel better).

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