Digital Billboards: An Incentive for Outdoor Agencies

It is not difficult to understand why digital billboards are attractive to advertisers. They are bright and eye-catching and can convey multiple marketing messages simultaneously. It is a new, flashy, and exciting innovation in outdoor advertising. In this piece, Yetunde Ogundipe compares the Digital Billboard to its more traditional counterpart.   

Motorist cruising along knotty traffic situations in Allen and Maryland areas of Lagos may be experiencing a new feel to the landscape lately. But relax; your eyes are not deceiving you. Chances are you probably just passed a digital billboard

“This is a new technology, you don’t get tired of looking at it and unlike the traditional billboard it is animated. It holds people captive because the lightened ambiance it gives to the site at night makes it captivating,” says Enamebgai Friday, CEO of Plural Media, a media and technology outfit which launched its first digital billboard within the city at the Allen Avenue Roundabout, Ikeja, in March this year. The company began operations two years ago with its first board situated at Aba Road, Port Harcourt. After a couple of months, it moved to The International Airport in Calabar.

“After considering the successes of the two sites in other states, we thought that for us to be in business we needed to be in Lagos and Abuja. And of course, more site are coming up in the nearest future,” he promises.

There are currently four operators in the country.

Digital billboards are proving to be beneficial to advertisers and they are an absolute bonanza for billboard companies. Following the successes recorded with the first few sites set up in other states, their number is increasing. For example, Intercontinental Marketing Communications and Consortium also owns a board in Abuja which measures 42m by 18m.  

The flashy billboards form images through small light emitting diodes and can be seen from about half a mile away. They are backlit, bright, vivid, and eye-catching, and they shine on passersby in a way that traditional signs never can. Since they are computer controlled from a comfortable office setting, billboard messages can be changed easily to display time-sensitive or seasonal messages.

With digital billboards, you can enjoy the flexibility of being able to run different ads at different times of the day or year. You are no longer hampered by the hassles of taking down printed artwork and replacing it with a new one every time your advertising campaign changes; you simply pull an unwanted advert from the rotation and replace it with another.

They also allow you to directly respond to market conditions within minutes. You can create a new advert within minutes, send it to the outdoor company, they load it into the system and schedule it to run immediately.

This innovation has opened up new and exciting opportunities for both billboard companies and advertisers. Message can be passed across within 5 to 15 seconds intervals so motorists and other people in transit are able to assimilate their content and view it two or three times within a 2 minute period before they move on.

Erecting the billboards could be expensive when compared to the traditional type. “It is pretty expensive when compared to the traditional billboard in terms of erecting. This is where the bulk of the money goes; unlike a uni-pole that is static and all you need to do is change the flecks (i.e. material). A lot of things go into the digital outdoor, you have to consider the LCD, equipment, materials and software. You need to have a 27 KVA generator; you need about four to five ACs.” Friday further explains.

He continues: “It is expensive to erect. But the rates are very cheap. The rate comes in different categories. We have a day, week or a month’s rate, quarterly or yearly. A day is as cheap as 50 thousand naira. And products can get a minimum of about 200 to 250 exposures every day.”

The profits are also higher as the boards can host several adverts from different clients at once as opposed to their traditional counterparts.

Industry experts say flexibility is key to the early success of digital billboard advertising. Most notably, it offers the flexibility of advertising on certain days of the week, months or times of the day.  

For advertisers, the number and time of rotations, size and location of the billboard determine how much is paid.

New technology always prompts questions about safety and studies show that contemporary digital billboards are safe and not correlated with traffic accidents.

Again, Friday assures the public that, “When we came on board, the question of the hazards of the digital billboard was asked by people in authority and we assured them that there will be no hazard in any way. Before starting, we did a research and from our findings we concluded not to run a full Television Commercial (TVC) material on our board. When we get a client’s TVC, we take the material to our studio and work on the material in such a way that people in transit can understand the massage in five seconds with just images and animations.”