Spinoff: Baton Rouge Marketing

I left a bit of rant on the craft brewery thread talking about how Tin Roof inexplicabilty has no ad presence on Nicholson Dr. Itself...and want to take it further.

Every truck driver, passer-by, and family of 4 that is driving from Pensacola to San Diego, from San Antonio to Mobile, and every possible option in between will be GPS routed through downtown Baton Rouge. Baton Rouge small businesses collectively choose to do nothing about it.

This is true despite the I-10 traffic problem, this is true despite downtown Baton Rouge being possibly the only one of the top 75 market that can usually handle after hours semi parking in the downtown area.

Instead of billboards targeting these drivers, I see the billboards targeting local elections (useless to national traffic), billboards targeting law firms (not likely a billboard based purchase), and billboards highlighting BR problems (not the best advertisement).

Why not have a restaurant/bar in Port Allen with "rush hour" specials, and have that bar advertise on I-10 where people are doing jack Shiite but staring at a wall of traffic waiting for the bridge? Why not have 3rd St. Absolutely burned in people's skulls by the time they sit in traffic heading in/out of Baton Rouge? From a marketing point of view it doesn't matter if it's not Bourbon, traffic is traffic and I don't see any sign of BR business owners even going after it.