Georgia State Is Latest Example of Atlanta’s Obsession of Buying Mobile Advertising After College Football Wins

    Who's renting the digital advertising trucks that drive around the city to play replays of recent wins, and why is it always in Atlanta?

    I lived in Atlanta for over a year, which coincided with when the Kirby Smart era at Georgia took off and nearly culminated with a national championship in Year Two.

    I was inside Sanford Stadium when the No. 13 Bulldogs beat Samford amid a 9-0 start to the 2017 season and I watched the 2018 College Football Playoff National Championship – when Alabama and some backup quarterback named Tua Tagovailoa rallied to beat Georgia 26-23 in overtime – next to my younger cousins, who were decked out in ‘Dawgs gear, except for one who wore a ‘Bama jersey.

    That year-plus living in the 404 gave me a window into what football means in the South, specifically the SEC and the city of Atlanta.

    One of the most Atlanta things I saw in my time there caught my eye when I was driving downtown to an Atlanta Hawks game and I saw a yellow Hummer driving around the city with a flat-screen TV strapped to the back of the vehicle, showing a replay of Georgia’s 54-48 win over Oklahoma in the Rose Bowl that sent the Bulldogs to the national championship.

    I didn’t save the Snapchats I took of the Hummer, but luckily someone else did.

    The yellow Hummer had previously done the same city-wide tour with a replay of the 2017 SEC Championship, when Georgia got its revenge on Auburn, vaulting the ‘Dawgs into the playoff.

    Fast forward to this week, days after Georgia State arrived in Knoxville, Tennessee as a 25-point underdog to the Volunteers leaving Neyland Stadium with a win. It was a win that, predictably, resulted in an Atlanta strip club trolling Tennessee on Twitter and Tennessee’s team account going silent for nearly a day.

    Someone paid Coast 2 Coast Mobile Media to drive a truck around Atlanta this week and display highlights of the Georgia State-Tennessee game on the side of the truck.

    The back of the truck displayed a large poster of the final score: 38-30.

    Luckily, someone documented it for our enjoyment. (Warning: Language in the video is NSFW)

    I called Coast 2 Coast Mobile Media to learn more about the truck and the advertising campaign, assuming it was a well-off Georgia State fan who privately rented the truck for a day to celebrate the Panthers’ win and to troll any Atlanta-based Volunteers.

    “To be honest, this campaign is through Georgia State,” said David Allen of Coast 2 Coast Mobile Media.

    Georgia State received $950,000 from the University of Tennessee for its trip to Knoxville last week, so paying for a week of advertising (or depending on how you look at it, real-life trolling an SEC school) is a drop in the bucket after the school cashed a check worth nearly $1 million.

    Allen said that while the truck is just showing highlights from last week, not a replay of the entire game, the company has the ability to show a full-length replay or even livestream a game in real time.

    The company has been hired to advertise Georgia State’s home-opener on Saturday against Furman, so it’ll be a long week for Tennessee fans in the city – the truck is making rounds all week.

    “One of the Tennessee Vols fans didn’t like it,” Allen said, laughing, when I mentioned the viral tweet of a Tennessee fan driving past the mobile advertising truck.

    Has the latest Georgia State campaign helped business at all?

    “We stay pretty busy but anyway it’s good – all publicity is good publicity,” Allen said. “It’s not like it went from zero to 10.”

    That brings us to the following question – one that I ask in the most approving way possible: what’s up with Atlanta-based college football fans’ discretionary income repeatedly going toward digital mobile advertising as a form of celebration/trolling?

    Once again, I support the investment of renting a large vehicle – Hummer or otherwise – with one or multiple TVs attached to it and having the screens show a recent win. It’s something I hadn’t seen until I moved to Atlanta and it’s something I haven’t heard of happening anywhere else since then.

    For the record, it can cost upwards of three grand for one day of mobile advertising, give or take a couple hundred bucks depending on with which advertising agency you strike a deal.

    I reached out to a digital mobile advertising company that operates in Atlanta, American Mobile Ads, to ask if they’ve received any of these college football-specific advertising requests.

    I didn’t get an answer, but I did get their prices.

    One eight-hour day of advertising for a mobile digital billboard truck costs $3,685.

    The discounted rate, however it is that you negotiate that, is only $2,895 per day.

    “American mobile ads state-of-the-art mobile digital trucks are three-sided and can play any combination of video and/or static images,” a company representative said in an email. “Audio and stereo sound are available. The mobile digital Billboard trucks can display live events or live streaming of a televised event.”

    Now the question is whether any Georgia State fans will try to pony up enough money to send one of these trucks with flat screens attached to it to Knoxville, or better yet, if there are any companies near the University of Tennessee that would even think about agreeing to such a contract.

    Paying low-to-mid-four figures per day for a souped-up truck to drive around the city, showing highlights from a big win – whether it’s Georgia in the College Football Playoff or a lowly Sun Belt program winning the biggest game in school history – is both one of the most Atlanta moves ever and something you’d only see in college football. For that, we thank Georgia State, Coast 2 Coast Mobile Media and Twitter user @Chase_Miller5 for making the Panthers’ 38-30 upset of the Volunteers the gift that keeps on giving online.

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