Effective advertising not only means a thought-provoking and/or eye-catching ad, but also valuable placement, which is just as important as the ad’s message.

I just recently returned from a week-long trip to Panama and discovered that ad placement in some cases is not well thought out.

In the small, mountain town of Boquete, for instance, a billboard for Bvlgari fragrance stands next to a busy bus stop on the main street. The site of the alluring model and attractively packaged perfume literally made me stop. Not because it was a beautiful ad, but because of who was exposed to it on a daily basis — namely the townspeople of Boquete.

These hardworking Panamanian people take a bus from their small homes in the country to town each day to pick coffee or perform landscape duties for just a few dollars a day. So tell me, do these folks really need or even care about Bvlgari?

Alysia Shivers is a marketing professional in the real estate industry with a background in newspaper and magazine writing and editing. She blogs about life’s adventures at http://Unlyshd.blogspot.com and you can visit her website at http://www.alysiashivers.com/.

Filed under: Advertising, Campaign Critiques, Personal Opinions, Product Placement