Digital Billboards: This time more means less.
Background
Technology has changed the global face of business from an industrial economy, paper-dominant process model to a real-time, information-rich digital model. These advancements have created and cannibalized many types of industries and businesses. The obsession with accurate and timely information continues to feed the tech revolution. For example, the cell phone has nearly driven the payphone into extinction. In 1998 there were 2.6 million pay phones in use, today there are less than a million. The commercial- free appeal of satellite radio along with I-pods continues to diminish the captive audience for traditional radio. E-businesses such as Amazon and I-tunes have wreaked havoc on traditional music and book stores. Internet search companies continue to drain advertising revenue from the newspaper industry and DVR and TiVO allow consumers to ignore endless commercials. The struggle for real-time information and consumer attention has caused major shifts in advertising expenditures and is now revolutionizing an unlikely medium, the billboard. The next big fight for survival could be “out of home” media. The formal definition of Alternative Out-of-Home Media (AOOH) sector includes “advertising vehicles developed or upgraded over the past decade through new technology and methods in an effort to target more mobile and captive demographics in less cluttered locations outside the home.” The lion’s share of this growing sector belongs to Digital Billboards (DBBs.) In the United States there are 410,000 static or traditional billboards and 400 digital billboards, according to the Outdoor Advertising Association of America Inc, and it is projected the number of DBBs could swell to 4,000 within 10 years. Based on the above examples as the DBBs market matures and economies of scale evolve, static billboards will become less profitable and less attractive to the industry. Opportunities will arise for advertisers, businesses, and communities to negotiate and design a leaner and greener network of billboards that both enhances our natural landscape and improves public safety.
Opposition
Most opposition groups site two main points, visual pollution and driver safety. First, the debate started in 1965 when The Highway Beautification Act was passed, limiting the number of new billboards. During the last four decades billboard companies have threatened lawsuits over unfriendly ordinances and bribed civic organizations with free billboard space advertising upcoming community events. By the late 1990’s many surveys were conducted to demonstrate the country’s mass disapproval: 10 to 1 margin, Floridians favor reducing the number of billboards; 81% of residents of Houston, TX favor their existing ordinance banning new billboard construction; 9 out of 10 Michigan residents feel the state has too many billboards.
We take them for granted when driving miles to the closest mall. We are unconscious of their usefulness when traveling to see a distant relative by car. We can't take a moment to stop and admire their beauty and usefulness; the architectural wonders that are highways and their interchanges; which have such a rich history embedded in the American suburbia of today. Let's go back to the early 1900's, when the automobile was starting to become a dominate part of the American life (Morton, 2014). Around this time; a shift began to occur towards private transportation over public by influencing policies in their favor (Nicolaides and Wiese, 2006). One of these polices was created by the Federal Aid Highway of 1925; the United States Highway System which basically expanded the highways across the United States connecting one another, creating new opportunities for growth in many areas (Weingroff, 1996). This had many effects on different factors of the American way of life; specifically suburbia (Morton, 2014). After the war, the private home that was a luxury a few years prior, was now becoming affordable for many thanks to low interest rates and flexible payments through the National Housing Act of 1934, created by the Federal Housing Administration (Fishman, 1987). Perfect example of a policy acting towards private over public was the Los Angles Master Plan of 1941, which pushed the direction of private automobiles and singles households: there being 1.16 million cars (2.4 people per car) and having 31 percent of the city land dedicated for single family homes, this was really solidifying the post suburbia lifestyle (Fishman, 1987). In Los Angeles alone around this time, 900 square miles were transformed to tract development homes ...
Once the target market has been identified it is important to develop a marketing strategy. In today's fast paced, information overloaded society; conveying a message about a product seems to be more difficult than ever. The consumer is bombarded with advertising everywhere they look. Today advertising not only exists on television, radio, magazines, and newspapers, it can be found on billboards, park benches, in our mailboxes, on buses, taxis, at sporting events, and on clothing.
A concept that surfaced in the early 1920’s, advertising is a tactic that has been used to influence and persuade the people to participate in consumerism. Advertising in the 1950’s was mainly displayed by the use of the television, newspapers, billboards, and the radio. At the turn of the twenty-first century, advertisers began to rely more on the Internet and technology to share and provide information based on their products. Many relied on the usage of electronic billboards, sporting events, and even video
“Long term effects of repealing the National Maximum Speed Limit in the United States.” American Journal of. Public Health. 3 October 2010: 1-4. Web.
All in all, it seems that car companies can use posters to advertise their upcoming vehicle and get creative with it. It just goes to show this creativity of poster ads leads to countless ways of influencing and even repelling different consumer groups. Looking back, it also appears that behind these texts and images are tactful tools of advertising that can be manipulative and associative, and persuade to appeals of reason or emotion.
To Justify why use mass media like Radio and billboards. Being in Poland for a summer vacation taught me a thing or two about business. One would learn about KFC by radio plus street advertisements and billboards, ads on buses, train stations, and parks. With everyone walking and taking public transportation, radio, billboards, and flyers will prove to be the best delivery method in this country. With smartphones, technology is the way to deliver promotional offers to the consumers. Our research will show finding people at train stations that walk around are bound to see billboards and especially leaflets. Leaflets and smartphone apps will be the best methods to reach the consumer that is constantly on the go
From first-hand experience, one should easily realize that the common man would feel negativity toward raising speed limits. People fall into this trap because the general public is often mislead into believing that abolishing speed limits on highways will only cause more harm than good. People often are the victims of misunderstanding and people rarely observe the advantages offered by increasing the speed limit to a safe level.
Memory has been and always will be associated with images. As early as 1896, leading psychologists were arguing that memory was nothing more than a continuous exchange of images. (Bergson) Later models of memory describe it as more of an image text; a combination of space and time, and image and word. (Yates) Although image certainly is not the only component of memory, it is undoubtedly an integral and essential part of memory’s composition.
Zyman, S. and Brott, A. (2002). The End of Advertising As We Know It, Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley, Page 9, Page 10, Page 19
Technological advancements have changed our culture in many ways, even having it’s personal effect on advertising. With the invention...
People who are against the campaign are reasoning with both points mentioned. First, the traffic laws are not strict, and more cars and drivers would only make things worse. Second, the society is not ready to accept the fact that a woman can drive. People who are pro-campaign are saying there are no specific laws that prevent women from driving, and they're totally right. There is no such law that states you can't drive a car if you're a female.... ... middle of paper ...
This have create so much ease for the access of information and entertainment. The use of the Internet have constantly increase the amount of user capability to multitasking, as of September 2009 there have been up to an increment of 30% in the US (Gali Einav, 2010). With technology as a rapidly growing trend, consumers find it relatively a necessity to own a smart phone. Having to view the news without the interference of having to wait through commercial or advertisement, the internet has created a passive platform for advertisement to be display passively. With the Internet supporting throughout multiple kind of device’s platform, the hassle of viewing the news will not be an issue for any consumers as long as they are logged on. This has caused a great deal towards the mainstream media, by creating participating communities around the media events. Consumers may choose to desert and choose the Internet as a substitution of traditional news media with the assumption of users being a more active consumer, rather than passive (Scott L. Althaus & David Tewksbury,
In recent years, digital media has become more popular, and is one of the reasons why print media is facing a financial crunch. The average American adult spends five hou...
Nowadays, advertising is a very big business. Very often is the major means of competing among firms. Furthermore, supporters of advertising claim that it brings specific benefits for consumers.
...r benefits, an example is that people are now able to respond and give feedback on the advertisements they come across on TV, billboards, bus-ads and posters. People often are incapable of expressing their opinion on certain advertisements and thus find this as a release and an easy way to express their thoughts. This serves as a sort of satisfaction for the customers as it satisfices there need to be heard and their opinion to be seen. Finally, the majority of Culture jammers do not have enough finances to have their images and messages reach a wide range of people like commercial advertisers do and thus distribute bumper stickers to try and reach a global scale at a relatively cheaper price. http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/003259.html These bumper stickers give an opportunity for cultural jammers to express their opinions without destroying public property.