Insurer’s billboards chronicle OSU wins.

More Ohio State-isms

By Joe Blundo

The vinyl makes it final. With each successive Ohio State victory this football season, billboard crews crossed out — with red vinyl stickers — the opponent’s name on five advertisements throughout Columbus. Yesterday, they obliterated the 12 th and last team: Michigan. The sweet duty capped a successful regular season for the Buckeyes, who finished a perfect 12-0 by beating their archrival Saturday, and Nationwide Insurance, which picked the perfect year to chronicle the OSU schedule.

"The fact that they won every game certainly helped our billboard campaign," said Steven Schreibman, Nationwide vice president of advertising and brand management.

The idea — a local version of the Columbus-based insurer’s national "Life comes at you fast" campaign — was developed by TM, a Dallas advertising agency. It also has been used in print ads.

The billboards will remain in place through the Bowl Championship Series title game on Jan. 8, after which Nationwide hopes to cross out a 13 th opponent.

The billboard campaign has attracted more attention than most others for the company, Schreibman said.

The billboards — three owned by Clear Channel and two by CBS — are on Ackerman Road near Olentangy River Road; on N. 3 rd Street, Downtown; at Hudson and Summit streets; along Rt. 315 near King Avenue; and on N. High Street south of North Broadway.

From week to week, the task of updating the Clear Channel billboards fell to supervisor Dave Ratliff and one or two co-workers.

"My No. 1 job on Mondays is to get it done," said Ratliff, explaining that each billboard adjustment — completed from an aerial lift — takes 20 to 30 minutes.

Yesterday’s took a little longer, though, because Nationwide decided to replace the big Michigans with even bigger ones — to dramatize the cross-out.

As employee Damon Young put a bold slash through the 10-foot-long word on the Ackerman billboard, passing cars honked in triumph.

What if Ohio State had lost?

The plan was to white out the name of any victorious opponent, Schreibman said.

"But," he said confidently, "we knew they wouldn’t lose."

Courtesy The Columbus Dispatch