Outdoor Advertising Exchange

Digital Billboards

Background

- Out of home advertising is a growing $6.8 billion industry; the OAAA anticipates sustained growth in 2007.

- A tiny fraction of billboards are digital (500-plus out of an estimated 450,000 total billboards in the United States).

- Over the next few years, it is anticipated that several hundred digital displays may be built each year.

- Copy changes on billboards; digital technology is a means for changing static copy.

- Digital billboards display static messages that resemble standard painted/printed billboards when viewed.

- Digital billboards do not feature animation, flashing lights, scrolling, or full-motion video.

These standards are reflected in the OAAA Code of Industry Practices to ensure that commercial and noncommercial messages disseminated on standard-size digital billboards will be static messages and the content shall not include animated, flashing, scrolling, intermittent or full-motion video elements.

Advantages of Digital Billboards

- Authorities can deliver emergency and law-enforcement information:

AMBER Alerts to find missing children

Weather and disaster bulletins

"Wanted" information to help police find fugitives

- Advertisers can deliver real-time information.

- Digital billboards promote local businesses, and most of those are considered "small businesses."

- Digital billboards can adapt quickly in fast-changing, competitive environments. Examples include:

Changing interest rates or mortgage rates

Lottery jackpots

Sales specials

- Potential for advertisers to target and purchase by day part, location or geography.

- Advertisers no longer have printing and shipping costs.

- Multiple advertisers can share prime locations.

- Digital boards create demand for high-tech jobs.

Digital Billboard Regulations

- In 1996, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) issued a memo that said changeable-message billboards are acceptable if allowed by state-federal agreements. Most states allow changeable-message billboards.

- States determine "dwell time" (typically six or eight seconds) and spacing between billboards.

Traffic Safety

- The Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI) study released in early 2004 said that billboards do not significantly affect driver behavior. Lead researcher, Dr. Suzanne E. Lee, concluded that neither visual behavior nor driving behavior changes measurably, even in the presence of the most visually attention-getting billboards.

- FHWA says that tri-action billboards do not pose distraction problems. (FHWA, commenting in the Federal Register regarding a change in the federal-state agreement with the State of Oregon , to allow tri-action billboards. Federal Register, Volume 67, No. 63, April 2, 2002/Notices)

- The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety has done extensive research on distraction. A major study based on crash data and prepared for the Foundation by researchers at the University of North Carolina said items such as CB radios, billboards, and temperature controls are not significant distractions. ( "The Role of Driver Distraction in Traffic Crashes," Page 33, prepared by University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center, Chapel Hill, NC (2001)

Source: Outdoor Advertising Association of America