Freeway Businesses Enjoy Benefit Of ‘Silent Sales Display’

Imagine being a business owner and having free advertising that is seen every day by thousands of potential customers.

Some Valley businesses with freeway frontage have just that.

With 100,000 commuters passing by twice a day, the businesses’ signs, reader boards and model boats, homes and RVs have a captive audience.

Timberland Custom Homes, located northwest of the Liberty Lake exit, sells 100 homes, taking in about $1 million, a year without spending one penny on radio, television or newsprint ads.

“It’s a visual experience,” said Richard Lay, a builder at Timberland. “People driving by probably haven’t heard of us but they’ve seen us. We take advantage of our visibility.”

Indeed, all four of Timberland’s sites are located along busy thoroughfares - “the only place we’d ever locate,” said Lay. Two are off Interstate 5 in western Washington. Another is off Highway 2 near Cashmere, Wash. The company uses those sites as showrooms to display the different modular homes Timberland builds in Auburn, Wash.

As motorists repeatedly see the same signs - not to mention the homes, boats, or RVs it sends somewhat of a subliminal message, said salesman Ed Pettersen of Olympic Boat Centers, located northeast of the Pines Road exit. “The more exposure to commuter traffic, the more implanted the seed becomes,” he said. “We’re a silent sales display.”

Purchases such as a home, boat or RV aren’t bought on impulse, said Pettersen. They’re something people work toward and save for, he said.

But when the time comes to buy, customers know where to go.

“Many people subconsciously or consciously know we’re here,” said Pettersen. “That’s the best advertising we can do.”

In the Valley, the trend to locate along the freeway is a relatively new one. Olympic opened in December of 1988. Timberland opened its Spokane location in February of 1995. RV’s Northwest off Barker Road opened in May 1995. And Oakwood Homes, a manufactured home lot, opened a month ago just a few hundred feet from RV’s Northwest.

Along with the free advertising, there’s another, purely practical reason that some of these businesses locate along I-90: It’s much easier to transport a manufactured home or an RV to such uncongested locations.

Managers at Oakwood Homes and RV’s Northwest said trucks and motor homes need easy access to and from the lots which the freeway provides.

But it does come down to money, most of the managers said.

Oakwood Homes, which has 256 show lots spread throughout the United States, has set a goal for general manager Tim Davis to sell 150 homes in 1997. “I couldn’t pay in my budget for the message my reader board conveys to the public,” said Davis.

Timberland’s Lay couldn’t agree more.

“Don’t tell me we don’t advertise,” he said, as he walked through one of four homes on display next to the freeway.

“I’ve got a million dollars’ worth of advertising right here.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo