The ‘Mr. Artzt’ billboards by outdoor advertising company Mediacom were a teaser campaign mounted after the head of Procter & Gamble told the Advertising Association of America tv exposure was vital to his company.

In a well-publicized speech to the association, John Artzt, p&g chairman and chief executive officer, said his company spends 90% of its $3 billion budget in that medium.

But Mediacom executives, led by Kevin O’Leary, senior vice-president of marketing, decided to show Artzt he might wish to reconsider the importance of tv advertising.

In the first week of the teaser campaign in late June, 41 posters in Toronto were put up carrying the message, ‘Who is Mr. Artzt?’

Within 24 hours, p&g in Canada and its competitors had phoned Mediacom looking for details.

In the two weeks after the posters, 60 transit shelter posters carrying different messages were added to the campaign.

In his speech, Artzt said in a month on tv some of his brands will reach 90% of their target six or seven times.

In the same period, O’Leary says, outdoor advertising can reach 82% of a target audience with a frequency of 22 times based on a 50-grp poster campaign.

He says Mediacom was ‘amazed and delighted’ its 21.3-grp teaser got p&g’s attention so quickly.

There is no word yet if p&g will take another look at outdoor.