billboards go digital - outdoor display

Newspaper advertising has been plagued by falling circulation, losses from online competitors such as key department store advertisers and Craigslist.
But now there's another big challenge lurking on the horizon: the billboard company.
Clear Channel Outdoor, a subsidiary of radio giant Clear Channel Communications, said it is expanding its digital billboard business in Chicago and Philadelphia and strengthening its operations in Los Angeles.
By the first week of September, the company expects to have 8 digital billboards in Philadelphia and a second digital network of 10 logos in Los Angeles.
It is expected that by October, the company will set up six digital billboards in Chicago, expanding the total inventory of digital billboards to 117.
This is just the latest sign that the outdoor advertising industry is turning to the digital space.
The dominant Lamar ads in the market and CBS Outdoor are also launching digital billboards in major markets.
All this is bad news for the newspaper.
Billboard companies and daily newspapers are racing to sell ads to the same customers.
But in general, they are peaceful coexistence.
Brand advertising (
Our wireless network is the best. and location-specific ads (
"You just passed Joe's restaurant ").
In contrast, newspapers-
Thanks to the fact that they publish every day. -
Typically capture most of the local advertising expenses for retail and product promotions (
"All washing machines and dryers can be discounted by 15% on Sunday ")and other time-
Sensitive advertising
Digital billboards threaten to take this important advantage of newspapers.
That's because they can change it once a day. to-
A day or even a minute if needed.
In addition, if they are located on major traffic lanes, their regularly updatable advertising information may attract more attention than local newspapers.
"I do think it has the potential to really change the media," said Paul Meyer, president and COO of Clear Channel Outdoor . ".
Our bread and butter will be our traditional outdoor billboard.
However, in order to be able to provide this option to customers, the entire category [advertising]
This is very difficult for us before.
"Clear Channel expects to have 140 to 150 digital billboards in 14 US cities by the end of this year. S.
The market includes the United States, Cleveland, Albuquerque, and Minneapolis/St.
Paul and Tampa Bay, Florida. , area.
This still accounts for only a small portion of Clear Channel's overall outdoor display inventory, which includes about 125,000 traditional billboards.
But digitization will broaden the scope of the company's choices.
Clear Channel plans to build more digital networks in major markets, which will enable it to sell ads that can be programmed to appear on a large number of digital billboards at the same time, Meyer said.
A key obstacle to digital display growth is national and local regulation of outdoor advertising.
"The existing zoning laws do not take this technology into account at all, so there are a lot of regulations that prohibit the various types of more distracting signs," Meyer said . ".
The digital billboard is configured to be the same size as the traditional billboard, showing complete
Image by light-color
About every 8 seconds a different ad will be launched.
Despite some local regulatory barriers, digital billboards are conceptually linked to so-called "tri-
Meyer believes that the "vision" Billboard. Tri-
Visual signs with mobile panels have been in use for decades.
But they are criticized for being more distracting than a completely static Billboard.
To help win the local government, Clear Channel meets with emergency management officials in each new digital market to develop agreements on how to issue public safety announcements through billboards.
The company's digital billboard in Minneapolis/St
The Paul metro area alerted local drivers to August.
Meyer said the West Bridge of Interstate 35 collapsed about 15 minutes after it collapsed.
He acknowledged that the advertising community had some differences in how best to calculate the customer impression of digital billboards, as they took turns choosing ads did not give advertisers a returnthe-
They are used to the clock exposure of traditional billboards.
Despite the challenges, Meyer is still optimistic about the digital business.
"It opens promotional ads in a way that we have never infiltrated before," he said . ".