Billboard advertising retains relevance through the principle of costly signaling, which asserts that higher expenditures correlate with perceived quality. While social media ads are effective, their low cost results in oversaturation. In contrast, billboards represent significant financial investment, enhancing their perceived impact. Costly signaling extends beyond monetary implications to include time, effort, and pain invested in communication. Research demonstrates that increased costs, such as those in religious donation rituals, boost perceived value and importance, underscoring the effectiveness of billboard advertising in conveying status and quality.
Costly signaling theory is the idea that the higher cost you put into something, the more other people will value it. This applies to advertising, showing that expensive advertising methods like billboards command greater respect and attention compared to cheaper methods like social media ads.
To put it in marketing terms, costly signaling means that the more resources you put into sharing your message, the higher people will rate it. This includes money, time, effort, and any expense used to make a message relatable and persuasive.
Rory Sutherland encapsulated costly signaling by stating, 'The meaning and significance attached to something is in direct proportion to the expense with which it is communicated.' This suggests that high cost translates to higher perceived value.
A 2013 study highlighted how expenses can lead to increased religious donations, demonstrating that the effort and pain worshipers experienced during their rituals positively impacted the amount they donated, further illustrating the principle of costly signaling.
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