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Advertising's bright idea

The digital future for billboard advertising has arrived - and it looks like a 48-foot-wide big-screen television.

By MARK ALBRIGHT
Published December 22, 2006

	7:09:57 P.M.: This billboard on Ulmerton Road keeps each ad for only as long as it takes a motorist to comprehend its message. State law forbids animation.
[Times photo: James Borchuck]

ADVERTISEMENT [Times photo: James Borchuck] 7:07:16 P.M.: Clear Channel sells a rotation of eight six-second digital ads. [Times photo: James Borchuck] 7:07:24 P.M.: The series of ads repeats 1,350 times a day.

Many industries are wrestling with their digital future. Now it's the billboard industry's turn.

Motorists on Ulmerton Road near 49th Street in Pinellas Park, on Brandon Boulevard east of Westfield Town Center mall or Veterans Expressway near Hillsborough Avenue in Tampa can catch a passing glimpse at Clear Channel Outdoor's first digital billboards in the Tampa Bay area.

They look like 48-foot-wide big-screen TVs.

Only without a moving picture, but more on that later.

"The message can really leap out at you big time," said John Garner, right of way operations director for the Transportation Department who monitors 17,000 billboards statewide and already asked Clear Channel rival Lamar Advertising to dial down the brightness on one of its first digital boards in Florida.

Billboard companies, however, are pitching their new ability to change ad messages any time of the day while dodging the cost and time of printing vinyl posters.

"If you don't like the results of your creative, you change it on impulse and it costs nothing," said Tony Alwin, spokesman for Clear Channel Outdoor, which accounts for about a third of the revenue of the radio station giant.

Tampa Bay, where Clear Channel owns about 1,000 billboards, is among the first markets to join the national network. Clear Channel plans nine of them here within 18 months and hopes to more than double its digital revenue to 5 percent of its billboard business in 2007. Lamar recently installed one in Lakeland.

Ad agencies are intrigued by the possibilities. But they are still figuring how to use the new tool. Ad buyers' zeal for digital, however, deflates when they learn the boards are not equipped to show animation or full-motion video. Florida forbids moving images on billboards by state roads as a safety hazard. It also forbids a two-second dissolve between messages.

So Clear Channel sells a rotation of eight six-second ads that repeats 1,350 times a day. The state picked six seconds after studies found a passing motorist needs that much time to comprehend a message.

So smart marketers make billboard messages seven words, tops.

Clear Channel's pilot in Cleveland was declared a success after first-year revenue from seven billboards there converted to digital soared sixfold to $2-5.million. The boards cost $300,000 to $500,000 each, about three to five times as much as their predecessors.

Clear Channel charges a bit less than an old board. But it's more expensive if you consider the potential audience is split eight ways.

"It's expensive, but I'm keeping them on my radar screen," said Jan Kartt, top media buyer at FKQ Advertising in Clearwater.

Clear Channel doesn't have enough boards up for national accounts yet. It's offered introductory deals for locals. Among the first: a plastic surgeon, Topper King truck covers, Sun Toyota and TBO.com, the Web site of the Tampa Tribune and WFLA-TV Ch. 8.

"The board engages the eye, but we have to see how effective this is or if it becomes just another out-of-home medium," said Paul Daigle, president of Dallas' Pyper Paul Kenney Advertising.

Digital billboards are not new. A cruder version tried two decades ago on Ulmerton flopped. But as technology improved, some towns decided full-motion video ads add to the bustle of entertainment hubs like Times Square in New York and the Las Vegas Strip.

In fact, the evolution of the digital sign - the guts of which are tiny red, green and blue light-emitting diodes LEDs - grew from small red-on-black background signs in bank lobbies and McDonald's drive-through windows. CVS and Walgreens use them to promote daily specials. Anybody who has driven behind a PSTA bus when the driver hits the brakes knows how much brighter eye-grabbers LEDs are.

Mark Albright can be reached at albright@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8252.

[Last modified December 21, 2006, 23:01:30]