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 advertising and we’re not talking about your father’s billboards.

Today, the outdoor billboard industry includes not just the small 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 about 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 advertising is nearly $5 billion, a ten percent growth rate and more than double a decade earlier. Moreover, billboards are the place to see some of the most creative 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 fewer 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 - daily 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 options are radio and billboards.

Anyone who is old enough to remember the old Burma Shave signs along the highway knows that outdoor billboards can be very engaging and today’s outdoor billboard industry contributes millions of dollars of space to various public service causes.

The new computer-painting technology used by the industry is making outdoor billboards brighter, more exciting, and upbeat. Their messages are typically more clever, humorous and artistic - there’s even a significant awards programs called the “Obie” to recognize outstanding 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 information age, billboards have gone high tech. Digital technology developed at MIT has transformed the way billboards are made. Until the 1990s, most billboards were hand-painted on plywood. Quality was inconsistent; worse, when paint faded and wood chipped, billboards became eyesores. Today, computer-painting technology has all but eliminated the old-fashioned sign painter, and plywood has given way to durable vinyl that can be cut to any size, then rolled into tubes for easy shipping.

Huge graphics can be produced more quickly and at lower cost, and digital printing ensures faithful reproduction--so that an ad for Levi's blue jeans looks precisely the same everywhere. Interestingly, Metromedia Technologies, the company that brought computer painting to the market, is owned by billionaire John W. Kluge, who's been a major force in the billboard business for four decades. 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 though outdoor is only a tiny 2 per­cent of overall ad spending, its effect is growing, particularly in one-of-a-kind locations such as Times Square and Sunset Boulevard, where exposure is impossible to calculate. Signs there can pop up on the news, in movies and in magazines, and that doesn't even take into consideration the millions who walk through the areas weekly. "We can't even tell an advertiser how many impressions they are getting," says Brian Turner, president of Sherwood Outdoor, which sells 60 site "spectaculars" at One and Two Times Square and 1600 Broadway, making it the 12th largest out­door company in terms of revenue.

A wide range of advertisers Coca Cola, General Motors' Cadillac division, Samsung, Prudential, NBC, Budweiser, New York State Lottery, even The New York Times pay six-figure monthly rates to hold space for 10 years, a far cry from the days when the signs used to turn over every six months. Times Square is so much in demand that Inter City is building a 50 story hotel and 300­foot tower at Broadway and 47th Street that will accommodate a total of 75,000 square feet of outdoor advertising. "The tower is the largest structure ever built exclusively 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

And to make sure they stand out in the crowd, modern billboards are taking even new forms.

"We are morphing our products," says TDI's Yegelwel. In Chicago, TDI wrapped a two car, 96 foot long commuter train with Washington Mutual's ad message. And no space is left uncovered. In New York's World Trade Center, TDI helped Dodge take over every possible space of the rail station ­floors, walls, posters, banners, escalators ­to create a single exhibit. The headquarters of AARP was draped in fabric to announce the introduction of a new magazine reaching younger readers and the World Bank draped its building in fabric to support World AIDS Day.

"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 unique spectaculars.

For Poland Springs, Atomic Props created a 30 foot water bottle. Jell-O in Times Square serves up a giant spoon with 4,000 smaller spoons.

In Minneapolis, home base for Target, people look forward to a new three dimensional billboard object every month, such as Old Faithful, complete with spray every 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."

"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. Other media are fragmenting, new technology has made us more creative, and advertisers are seeing billboards in a new light."

Since 1996, the Big Three of billboards--Outdoor Systems, Eller, and Lamar--have spent more than $5 billion to gobble up dozens of mom-and-pop operators, as well as the outdoor divisions of big companies like Gannett and 3M. Together they control about 40% of the revenues generated by the 400,000 or so billboards across America; as industry giants, they can operate efficiently and provide one-stop shopping to national advertisers. Goodwill Communications’s outdoor database has been reduced from over 600 outdoor companies two years ago to just over 400 today, due to consolidations and buy-outs.

PSA Communications Advantages

When used to inform the public about public causes, outdoor billboards provide many different communications advantages and the total universe of outdoor opportunities is almost unlimited, as shown by the following table provided by the Outdoor Advertising Association of America.

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

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

One media buyer for a major advertising agency demonstrates the flexibility of outdoor: "I'm running Russian copy in a New York neighborhood, Filipino in San Francisco, Arabic in Detroit."

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

Fourth, public service messages on outdoor billboards are often available because outdoor companies don’t wants to have an ugly sign with no message on it staring out at motorists for an extended period of time.

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

For additional tips on how to launch your outdoor PSA campaign, send an e-mail to bgoodwill@goodwillcommunications.com and we will provide you with a password to gain access to the protected section of our corporate website.