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It was written off as a dead industry, particularly with the demise of tobacco advertising. It has been called a blight on the American landscape. It even earned the nickname “pollution on a stick.” But things have changed with outdoor advertizing and we’re not talking in regards to your father’s billboards.

Today, the outdoor billboard industry includes not just the little 8-sheet poster along your local rural road; it includes mammoth signs that tower above the tens of thousands of people who pass through Times Square each day. It includes rolling advertisements on the sides of trucks and buses. It includes a plethora of signage at speedways, and in sports stadiums. And it includes “outdoor furniture” signage comprised of bus shelters, benches and just in regards to anyplace else where people congregate.

Like them or not, outdoor billboards are here to stay and the industry has never looked brighter. Overall spending on outdoor advertizing is closely $5 billion, a ten percent growth rate and more than double a decade earlier. Moreover, billboards are the place to see a lot of of the most originative work in advertising, in spite of the fact that you have only a few seconds to capture the viewer’s attention. To those in the industry, outdoor is in.

A Mobile Society

Contemporary social trends favor billboards. Americans are spending less hours at home, where TV, cable, magazines, newspapers, books, and the Internet all clamor for attention. People are spending more time than ever in their cars – every day vehicle trips are up 110% since 1970, and the number of cars on the road is up by 147%. For most people stuck in traffic, the only media choices are radio and billboards.

Anyone who is old sufficient to do not forget the old Burma Shave signs along the highway knows that outdoor billboards may be very engaging and today’s outdoor billboard industry contributes millions of dollars of space to respective public service causes.

The new computer-painting engineering used by the industry is making outdoor billboards brighter, more exciting, and upbeat. Their messages are quintessentially more clever, humorous and artistic – there’s even a substantial awards programs called the “Obie” to recognize great outdoor creative, including a category for PSAs.

The new single-column structures have cleaner lines than the old telephone pole or I-beam structures, and are supporting and complementing today’s crisp, new, bright, architecturally-designed stores, buildings and malls.

Like other rising stars of the data age, billboards have gone high tech. Digital engineering devised at MIT has transformed the way billboards are made. Until the 1990s, most billboards were hand-painted on plywood. Quality was inconsistent and when paint faded and wood chipped, billboards became eyesores. Today, computer-painting technology has all but annihilated the old-fashioned sign painter, and plywood has given way to lasting vinyl that may be cut to any size, then rolled into tubes for easy shipping. Huge graphics may be developed more speedily and at lower cost, and digital printing ensures faithful reproduction–so that an ad for Levi’s blue jeans looks precisely the same everywhere.

Billionaire John W. Kluge, a major strength in the billboard business for four decades, brought computer painting to the market by way of his company, Metromedia Technologies. From 1959 to 1986, Kluge owned Foster & Kleiser, then the nation’s biggest billboard operator, and Metromedia is now the world leader in large-scale imaging. Other innovators are adding three- dimensional structures, digital tickers, and continuous motion to outdoor ads.

Even even though outdoor is only two percent of overall ad spending, it is effect is growing, peculiarly in one-of-a-kind locatings such as Times Square and Sunset Boulevard, where exposure is out of the question to calculate. Signs there may pop up on the news, in movies and in magazines, and that doesn’t even take into contemplation the millions who walk through the areas weekly. “We can’t even tell an advertiser how numerous impressions they are getting,” says Brian Turner, president of Sherwood Outdoor, which sells 60 website “spectaculars” at One and Two Times Square and 1600 Broadway, making it the 12th biggest outdoor company in terms of revenue.

Outdoor Goes Green

This New Year’s Eve revelers at Times Square will have a close-up view of the country’s initial environmentally friendly billboard. Powered wholly by wind and sun – 16 wind turbines and 64 solar panels – the sign is expected to save $12,000 to $15,000 per month in electricity costs. Multiply this by all the other cities in the country using electrical power for outdoor illumination, and it amounts to a signficant cost savings and eco-friendly outdoor.

A wide range of advertisers such as General Motors’ Cadillac, Samsung, Prudential, NBC, Budweiser, New York State Lottery, even the New York Times remunerate six-figure on a monthly basis rates to hold space for 10 years, a far cry from the days when the signs employed to turn over each six months. Times Square is so much in demand that Inter City built a 50 story hotel and 300 foot tower at Broadway and 47th Street with a total of 75,000 square feet of outdoor advertising. “The tower is the greatest structure ever built altogether for advertising,” says Bob Nyland, president of Inter City Premiere. Advertisers include American Express, Apple, AT&T, HBO, Hachette Filipacchi, Levi’s, Morgan Stanley, Nokia and the U.S. Postal Service.

The Morphing of Outdoor

“Outdoor used to be known as the beer, butts, and babes medium,” says Andrea MacDonald, president of MacDonald Media, a New York agency that specializes in out-of-home advertising. Now, she says, “everything’s changed. New engineering science has made us more creative, and advertisers are seeing billboards in a new light.”

To make sure they stand out in the crowd, innovative billboards are taking even new forms. In Chicago, Transit Display International (TDI), wrapped a two car, 96 foot long commuter train with an ad. And in numerous areas, no space is left uncovered. For example, in New York’s World Trade Center, TDI helped Dodge take over each possible space of the rail station floors, walls, posters, banners, escalators to manufacture a single exhibit. The World Bank draped it is building in fabric to support World AIDS Day. Billboards, transit kiosks, posters and other forms of outdoor may be strategically placed around Washington, DC Metro stops at the Pentagon or an executive branch agency such as the Department of Transportation to make a statement in regards to a crusade or issue.

“We’ve had requests for moving, smoking and smelling boards,” says Pat Punch, who is a co-owner of Minneapolis-based Atomic Props, a company that specializes in distinctive spectaculars. For Poland Springs, Atomic Props formulated a 30 foot water bottle and an outdoor poster for Jell-O in Times Square serves up a giant spoon with 4,000 littler spoons.

In Minneapolis, home base for Target, humans look forward to a new three dimensional billboard object each month, such as Old Faithful, finish with spray each 10 minutes, which symbolizes Target’s donation to the nation’s parks. Minneapolis retailer Dayton-Hudson once had three dimensional boxes of candy that emanated a mint scent. Says Punch: “Over the last 10 years, our business has tripled as people see the possibilities.”

Since 1996, the Big Four of billboards–Outdoor Systems, Eller, Clear Channel and Lamar–have expended more than $5 billion to gobble up dozens of mom-and-pop operators, as well as the outdoor sectionalizations of huge companies like Gannett and 3M. Together they control in regards to 40% of the revenues generated by the 400,000 or so billboards throughout America. As industry giants, they may operate expeditiously and provide one-stop buying goods to national advertisers. Goodwill Communications’s outdoor database has been scaled down from over 600 outdoor companies two years ago to just over 400 today, due to consolidations and buy-outs.

PSA Communications Advantages

Outdoor is perchance the most overlooked medium of all when it comes to launching PSA campaigns. Admittedly, the cost of printing billboard paper may be expensive, but given the typical results we have experienced for clients, we believe that outdoor provides splendid exposure opportunities.

When applied to inform the public with regards to public causes, outdoor billboards provide a good deal of dissimilar communications advantages, and the total universe of outdoor chances is closely unlimited, as shown by the following table provided by the Outdoor Advertising Association of America.

First, outdoor is distinctively available even in towns that are too little to have a radio station or a local newspaper.

Second, billboards may provide communications reach right down to the neighborhood level. This may be utile if your venture is concentrating on inner city residents or high school students and you may convince the outdoor billboard company to post your PSA messages nearby.

One media buyer for a major publicity agency demonstrates the flexibleness of outdoor: “I’m running Russian copy in a New York neighborhood, Filipino in San Francisco, Arabic in Detroit.”

Third, when applied in conjunction with other forms of outdoor – sports stadium signage, transit and place-based media – they may provide the communications effectiveness of a local network, giving you reach and frequency all around the community.

Fourth, public service messages on outdoor billboards are often available because outdoor companies don’t want to have an ugly sign with blank paper staring out at motorists for an extended amount of time of time.

The Foundation for a Better Life, (FBL) in cooperative relationship with the Outdoor Advertising Association of America (OAAA), launched a nationwide PSA billboard venture with a dramatic kickoff on the NASDAQ electronic billboard in Times Square. With a theme of “Pass It On,” the billboards are share of a continuing PSA crusade to advertize positive values by way of viral techniques. Over the course of a year, OAAA fellow member advertizing companies around the country donated space on more than 10,000 displays for the Pass It On campaign, with an approximated ad value of more than $10 Million.

Created by Jay Schulberg, well known for his famous Milk Mustache ads, each billboard in the Pass It On crusade is meant to underscore a simple, yet galvanizing message. According to Gary Dixon, President of The Foundation for a Better Life, “The Pass It On effort was formulated to promote positive values and give hope or courage to humans to pass them on to others. We’re thrilled to launch it on the NASDAQ board in the very city where the resilience of the American spirit has shown so brightly for the entire world to see.”

Some of the personalities featured in “Pass It On” billboards include: Wayne Gretzky, Muhammad Ali, the Tianamen Square Protester, Mother Teresa, Albert Einstein Winston Churchill and Abraham Lincoln..

Airport Dioramas & Mall Posters

Perhaps the area where outdoor has seen the biggest growth is at airports. The total number of visitors at the top 44 airports in the U.S. tops 765 million passengers and over a half a billion humans pass through just the top 10 airports. There are message chances now aboard the airlines thru in-flight videos, on the drop down tables in each seat, the napkins placed on the tables, and even on the bottom of the security bins where passengers place their items before going through security screening. There are dioramas (backlit signs) in the terminals and on video screens while you wait for your luggage. Like it or not, the messages are inescapable.

One of the leading firms that fabricates the Duratrans material employed in airport dioramas is TKO Visual Communications. Manufactured by Kodak, Duratrans is designed for making brilliant display transparencies from color negatives or internegatives. It is available in sheets and rolls which are fictitious to fit respective sizes for posting in airports.

“Duratrans is in general regarded in the huge format graphics display industry as the benchmark for quality in translucent, backlit graphics,” observes Tom Ortolano of TKO. “It is intended for huge format, full-color display of photographic content in a controlled, backlit environment, so that light passes through and illuminates the graphic display, supplying greatest or most complete or best possible color saturation and contrast.”

TKO works almost with the two greatest companies controlling signage at airports and buying goods malls – J.C. Decaux and Clear Channel Communications. “Since availabilities and sizes are perpetually altering closely daily, the best way to get PSA messages posted at these venues is to contact the two companies, percentage the originative with them and they will order specific sizes to fit their available locations,” Ortolano points out.

According to Ortolano, “the most mutual size for the basi request must be 62″ wide x 43″ in height overall, with 58″x38″ watching size, which will work with both companies controlling airport locations. Typically they will order dioramas in five other larger sizes which will be used in key airport locations,” he said.

Shopping Mall Displays

Mall displays come in a potpourri of dissimilar formats and sizes ranging from overhead banners, to exterior signage. Mall banners are big format, double-sided 12′Wx 16′H and 9′W x 12′H frames hung in the atrium of a mall providing commanding exposure to almost each mall shopper. Faces are printed digitally using high solution replica that vividly recreates each piece of creative. Banners are staged in the vertical “magazine” format and are proportionately identical to magazines (12′x16′, 9′x12′) so only one piece of art is required.

Mall posters, the most dominant mall media, measure 4′ wide x 6′ high, are backlit and located at eye level at major decision points in the mall – commonly affiliated with a directory unit. Specialty mall promotion comprises of a range of media formats – trumpet banners, decals, escalator wraps – that enable marketers to dominate the mall environment. Located in in major urban malls, special line of work media provide a distinguishable branding chance to provide buyers with multiple exposure opportunities.

Rail/Transit/Bus Stop Signage

Transit publicity – and corresponding PSA availabilities – are the confluence of various factors. Increasingly transit companies and municipalities that control the space, need more revenue and advertizing may provide a hassle-free income stream. Also, due to rising gas prices, the “go green” motion and highway congestion, more persons are using mass transit. To reach busy commuters, transit advertizing now takes a good deal of forms. These range from subway platform signage, ads on the sides, back and interiors of passenger busses and subways. Even the columns and floors of waiting areas are being covered. Similar to airport dioramas, the placement of PSAs in these venues requires a customized approach, working with the respective companies that control the space such as CBS Outdoor, and then supplying customized signage to fit the respective availabilities.

In conclusion, a society constantly in motion, more available locations, and the power of outdoor to convey a compelling message, are all trends that have contributed to the success of outdoor. One thing that hasn’t changed – those who control access to outdoor signage do not want to see an empty sign or poster – and that is what gives rise to almost unlimited chances for PSA placement.