Articles

Not much has changed in outdoor advertising over the past 100 years, but the industry is poised for an evolution that will boost revenues significantly.While traditional mass market media has struggled in recent years, the introduction of digital billboards is helping the outdoor advertising industry thrive. Outdoor advertising has become a frontline contender for advertising investment dollars.

So you’re thinking about digital outdoor. We happen to know there’s a lot more on your mind than which manufacturer you should choose. You, like most independent outdoor operators, no doubt have your share of questions about stepping up to digital outdoor.

Watchfire Digital Outdoor (watchfiredigitaloutdoor.com) expanded its presence in Louisiana with the installation of two new 19mm digital billboards in the Shreveport/Bossier City market. The 10’6” x 36’ billboards were purchased by Ace Outdoor and are installed in Bossier City, La., along the new Benton Road overpass.

Consider the traditional media plan for a rotary bulletin campaign. By blanketing any one city the advertiser receives great branding and the audience typically receives useful and engaging information. To its disadvantage, this open-ended communication has lacked interactivity or dialog with the audience.

So you're building a billboard but you're a little worried about some potential tree obstructions. The time to confront this problem is now, before you begin construction. Trimming trees and vegetation is always something people procrastinate on. And that's a terrible idea. What can be a fairly easy fix can turn into an unsolvable problem if you wait until the sign is built.

With Flipping single family homes a thing or the past, it’s time to examine other real-estate oriented options for more fertile territory. One area that is often overlooked is outdoor billboard media – basically big signs that advertise located on highways and roads.

When I drive down highways today, I am always saddened by all the billboard operators who are taking pretty good billboard locations and wrecking them with poor sign face alignment. This art seems to be getting progressively forgotten and underappreciated.

When I first got in the billboard business, I assumed that the taller the sign, the better the sign. When I was driving down the interstate and I saw a really tall billboard, I would think to myself “now there’s a valuable sign”.

Sure, everyone has a billboard face with poor visibility. Maybe you built the sign for the great visibility of the other side, or maybe it was a great read at one time, but there is at least one bad advertising face in every portfolio. So what do you do to maximize that one clunker?

Is our nation in a recession? If so, that signals a great buying and building opportunity for billboards. Some of the greatest billboard buys and builds in history have come as a result of an economic downturn. Why? The reasons are numerous: