While I agree that the digital outdoor advertising market has the potent...
Suggestion by 68.42.186.253 on 2007-10-09 00:26:59
While I agree that the digital outdoor advertising market has the potential to be an outstanding buy, we obviously must caution ourselves with this investment. There have already been regulations associated with such advertising, which claim that this “visual distraction” may not only impact the Highway Beautification Act of 1965, but may also suffer from regulations restrictions by various State Highway Safety bureaus. Some claim that digital advertisements will be a distraction to drivers and will increase traffic accidents. This may impact the growth of the digital billboard expansion.
Most importantly however, advertising on digital outdoor billboards will promote the same old products and the same old services that are currently being promoted on existing billboards. The question that lies ahead is, “ Will the lights and more creative visuals prompt consumers to purchasing the advertised product?” Right now, it’s much too early to tell. Unless the advertising is integrated with traditional marketing and other digital marketing, I wouldn’t expect consumers to increase consumption based on a fancier billboard. Therefore, I would expect marketers limit their digital billboard advertising budget until the increased expense equates to a significant ROI.
If one chooses to invest in this industry, I would recommend he/she consider this a short-term investment and continue to monitor the progress. This advertising will not increase sales immediately and this will keep many advertisers from buying space - impacting the profit of the billboard owners.
Add comments or discussion related to this suggestion here.
- In an ideal world, advertisers would only pay for a provable, causal effect of increased advertising leading to increased sales... However, that definitely isn't the case. Internet advertising had helped to change the game by becoming more measureable/trackable, but many of the metrics that advertisers measure against carry over from traditional advertising--such as brand awareness. There are "new" metrics such as "buzz" that mean much the same thing... Bottom line is that advertisers pay for this. Bringing this back to billboards: movies are one industry that immediately cross my mind when it comes to outdoor advertising. It is very difficult to disaggregate the specific impact of billboards to outdoor advertising when there are so many confounding factors such as other advertising channels (which often exceed outdoor by orders of magnitude), PR (don't underestimate the power of strong critic or a scandal involving a star), weather, etc... And one general rule of thumb is that the more targeted advertising is, the more advertisers will pay on a per unit basis. This is one promise of digital billboards.
- --Jay 09:12, October 9, 2007 (PDT)
