Outdoor Advertising â€“ The Digital Billboard

The outdoor advertising industry has been continually evolving since Jared Bell made posters to advertise the traveling circus in the United States. Year after year the billboard has brought in the most revenue in the outdoor advertising industry. The billboard that started out as a simple static structure displaying one ad, has now evolved with technology and today offers mechanical billboards that can show multiple messages, mobile billboards that can go where the consumer is, sidewalk billboards that greet pedestrian traffic. And last, but not least, the digital billboard that displays multiple messages from multiple advertisers on one sign using a rotating sequence. This article discusses the outdoor advertising digital billboards, how they differ from traditional billboards.

New billboards are being constructed or revised that at first glance look just like a regular old traditional outdoor advertising billboard. But when you look again, the difference is clear and. these new billboards are anything but traditional. They are entirely digital and using the latest technology available in the outdoor advertising industry to rotate through a series of images every six to ten seconds, displaying multiple messages from one or more advertisers.

Youâ€™ve seen the bright, colorful digital billboards in New Yorkâ€™s Times Square, or the on The Las Vegas Strip, but now that same outdoor advertising ability is coming closer to home. It certainly wonâ€™t be as much and as overbearing as in Times Square, because technology allows that a digital billboard can support signage in traditional outdoor advertising billboard dimensions or smaller.

According to the Outdoor Advertising Association Of America, digital billboards that areÂ Â made of tiny LEDs and light emitting diodes, only account for about 700 of approximately 450,000 billboards along the highways across the United States. They expect those numbers to steadily increase.

Some of the more popular differences between outdoor advertising digital billboards and traditional billboards are:

Digital displays are bright, bold and easy to see, especially at night. They are illuminated from behind the image instead of a series if lights on top or below the image.

Digital billboard ads can be changed by simply updating the digital file. You can show your lunch specials for the morning commuters and entice the rush hour commuters with your happy hour and dinner specials.

With digital billboards, your business shares the advertising space with other advertisers. Your ad is continually shown in a sequence for about six to ten seconds.Â With a traditional outdoor advertising billboard, there is only one ad and it usually last for a minimum of one month.

Production costs are less for digital billboards because, no printing, installing, or shipping of the materials are involved. The artwork used to create the billboard is digital and it remains that way.

Instead of being restricted to a single traditional billboard display, digital billboards allow you to show or even change your ads at multiple locations without incurring additional costs.

The Outdoor advertising industry has certainly come a long way since the days of the circus posters.Â Interaction between digital billboard and consumer is an ongoing and emerging progression. It has been reported that the Coca-Cola billboard in Piccadilly Circus actually responds to the changing weather conditions and produces an animated wave when a pedestrians wave at it.

Outdoor advertising digital billboards are not only being used for advertising, but also for public service announcements by local police departments and the FBI to show Amber Alerts for missing children and â€œwantedâ€ pictures of fugitive criminal suspects.