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Boomer Broadcast Opps: FastSigns names CMO amid decreased digital, TV spending (Score 74)

Signage and visual communications franchisor FastSigns named Jennifer Herskind as CMO in late October. Herskind comes from Smoothie King, where she led brand and marketing strategy as CMO. She will help the brand continue to grow internationally. It also hired Shayne Mehringer in September to lead expansion as CIO (chief information officer). In addition to its 700 global locations, FastSigns is scheduled to add Malta and Spain to its remit in 2019.

FastSigns may be aiming to get ready for the coming 2020 Presidential election, as it also specializes in signs and yard displays, banners and posters ahead of later debates.

In efforts to present itself as "selling a service" rather than a product, it partnered with creative agency 

According to Adbeat, FastSigns has spread dollars more evenly throughout the year in 2019 than it did in 2018, but unfortunately, spend has more than halved YOY, from $221.9k (Nov 2017 - 2018) to $53.2k (Nov 2018 - 2019). It spent more highly in H1 this year, which reflects 2018 spending patterns. All ads in the past 12 months were placed programmatically, primarily through Google ($46.7k) onto destinations such as accuweather.com ($23k), littlethings.com, yellowpages.com, goodreads.com and rumble.com. 

FastSigns has spent $1.8 million on national TV ads targeting politically-charged audiences through networks such as CNN and Fox News. It has spent pretty evenly throughout the year, which is usual. This is a slight decrease from the $2.1 million it spent by this time last year. Last year, it spent the most on CBS This Morning, and it stopped spending on this channel in late November. Sellers may run out of TV spending dollars soon, then. 

Sellers -- Offer Q1 2020 TV space targeting news watchers; FastSigns will likely continue to focus on politically-charged marketing in efforts to provide OOH signage to campaign runners this voting season. Remember that it has also utilized print and radio in the past, according to AvreaFoster. Per U.S. News, boomers are the top news watchers in the nation; consider them among your primary target audience, based on the top targeted TV shows. It also reportedly opened its first location in Queens, NY this August, so those in the area may have increased opportunities compared to previous years. 

Agencies -- As far as we know, FastSigns could still be working with creative AvreaFoster, but a new CMO may change that ongoing relationship, or at least add an agency to its roster. Reach out with digital services to get this company in front of campaign organizations and to continue building its offerings. They may also benefit from a media agency.