Billboard business keeps rolling along

Marla Letizia willingly gave up her quickly rising career as a newswoman to raise her children. In the back of her mind, she always knew there would be something waiting for her when she finally returned to the job market. She never realized it would be her own mobile billboard business.

Letizia was indirectly involved in the advertising industry via her husband, Tom, who has been a local advertising executive for the better part of 30 years. She has also lived in Las Vegas her entire life and seen the evolution of large businesses and the growing need for them to reach customers in order to compete.

"I was the first female director in Las Vegas," Letizia said of her brief career in television. "I starred in a community service talk show for two years. It was one of the first local shows that actually dealt with the community. From there I moved into news, joined an anchor team and did weather. But then I got married and had my first baby."

She had another child and stayed at home for several more years. After her children were much older, Letizia decided it was time to return to school, and received her master's degree equivalent in accounting. At around the same time, Mayor Oscar Goodman was running for office, and her husband was selected to be Goodman's campaign manager.

"A man with a mobile billboard truck approached my husband," she said. "He knows what gets results, and he took one look at the truck and said `you're hired.' "

That single truck showed up at various sites throughout Goodman's campaign in 1999, and left lasting impressions with voters. Letizia never forgot how affective of a tool the huge billboard with Goodman's face superimposed on it seemed to be. She repeatedly suggested her husband apply it to other aspects of advertising.

"He was experiencing a low in the ad business, which I was used to," she said. "He sat on the couch and said if you think it's such a damn good idea, you do it."

Letizia had an epiphany. She sat up half the night working out the details of a mobile billboard advertising business in her head. The next day, Letizia got to work. These days, if a person sees a mobile billboard driving down the street, it probably belongs to Marla Letizia's Mobile Billboards of Las Vegas.

"I bought my first truck in January of 2001," she said. "We were completely sold out the second day we were in business."

Part of the reason Letizia believes her business has caught on is the fact that people buy time instead of space. Since potential consumers or customers want different products at different times of the day, the billboards operate 24 hours a day.

When tourists and locals are in shopping mode in the afternoons, advertisers such as Saks Fifth Avenue have trucks driving around residential areas and hotels.

At midnight, different nightclub advertisers including RA at Luxor are illuminated by the truck's lighting system.

Letizia said the difference between a regular versus a mobile billboard is that her trucks, with their boards that have a patented zip-in, zip out vinyl system, can be changed in about 20 minutes. Because they're mobile, she can place her clients directly in front of the eyes of the public.

"We currently have five trucks and we sell 300 time slots a month," she said. "It's all about getting results for the client above and beyond every other outdoor product. Our philosophy is that we don't want to wait for a customer to drive by a message."

Her business also has a competitive intelligence department that is constantly searching for new ways to reach customers at the perfect time that their product would be easily suggestible and retained.

"Our goal is to get as many eyeballs as possible," she said.

International Game Technology, a local gaming company that supplies many major casinos with slot machines, has used the billboard service for several years. Connie Fox, public relations representative for IGT, said in addition to regularly promoting their products on the Strip, IGT has used the billboards at important conventions, such as the Global Gaming Expo.

"(Letizia) made a presentation to us when we were looking for a way to reach tourists on the Strip," Fox said. "We also wanted to reach our slot directors on the Strip, promoting our products that they have on their floor. We experimented and found it to be very effective. Once you see the truck on the street it's pretty hard to miss. We can be much more targeted with who we want to reach."


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