Outdoor ad's next step seen in video displays

By David Zizzo

Published: July 24, 2007

How many times has this happened to you: You're taking a road trip out West when you get a sudden urge to buy a kachina doll?

Generations of drivers experiencing various desires have always known where to turn for information to fill such needs: the outdoor advertising industry. For years, the industry has informed the motoring public using signs painted on wood or printed on paper that was pasted to wood or, in recent years, with vinyl sheets stretched across wood or steel frames.

It's a new era, though. Outdoor advertising has entered the digital age. A small percentage of billboards — those signs along roads and highways — and "on-premises” signs — ones at a business advertising that business — have essentially become giant flat-panel TV screens — technically speaking, anyway.

"All it was was an evolution of the traditional billboard,” said Brown Douglas, vice president and general manager for Lamar Oklahoma, part of one of America's largest outdoor advertising companies.

It's an expensive evolution. While a traditional 14-by-48-foot billboard costs about $50,000, a digital version of that costs 10 times that, Douglas said. And while the traditional sign can last 50 years, a digital billboard has an expected life span of only seven to 10 years.

So, why bother? For one thing, digital signs allow you to change a message instantly and remotely. You can change one from the office, from home, even a Starbucks — anyplace you can get access to the Internet. Even advertisers themselves can change their messages, which they can keep in a "creative library,” Douglas said.

Advertisers can even schedule messages to change at certain times of the day, giving them the ability to, for instance, instantly change the dinner special or offer a discount round of golf after 6 p.m.

"It's a tremendous asset,” he said.

Digital billboards also could be valuable for emergencies such as Amber Alerts, Douglas said. Within minutes, such billboards could display photos of a missing child or photos of a suspect or a suspect's vehicle, much more information than appears on highway signs.

"Pictures are worth more than bulbs flashing up there with a tag number,” he said.

With digital signs, all of this happens without someone climbing up on a sign, using cranes or winches, peeling things off and putting things on.

Motorists traveling along State Highway 9 west of Interstate 35 south of Norman can spot the 12-by-16-foot digital sign at Riverwind Casino more than a mile away. In a few seconds, potential gamblers south of Norman can get updated on entertainment acts or promotions scheduled at the casino.

"It's very viewable. It's very good for our business,” Riverwind marketing manager Angel Hunt said.

A digital sign consists of a matrix of thousands of red, green and blue light-emitting diodes that can produce any color, vividly and instantly. It's a big leap from the old signs, or even the "tri-vision” sign, a relatively recent design in which a series of three-sided slats mechanically rotate to present three different ads at intervals of a few seconds.

"We have found that in this Oklahoma wind, tri-visions just don't hold up,” Douglas said.

Public use of digital signs got their start along roadways as highway departments erected "dot matrix” type signs that provided road information, advertisers say. Advanced screens, such as Jumbotrons, began in sports and entertainment venues and have been operating for years in high-traffic and high-revenue areas, such as in Times Square and on the Las Vegas strip.

Lately, digital signs have gone mainstream, showing up along urban highways and, mostly in smaller versions, on businesses.

As technology improves and costs drop for digital signs — or as the sign industry calls them, electronic message centers or EMCs — look for many more to appear, said David Hickey, director of government relations for the International Sign Association.

"EMCs are definitely being used more and more by small businesses,” he said.

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