Imagine the confusion. Driving home late at night, bleary-eyed from too much time at the office, too much time looking at the computer. There's a billboard up ahead, and if anything, it's something to notice, something, at best, to relieve the highway monotony during a boring commute.
You blink. The same billboard is different -- different colors, different message, maybe even a different product. Yikes, you think. Too many late nights. Time for a vacation and it couldn't come soon enough.
OK, worry about working too hard, but don't worry about the billboard. You may be seeing the latest wrinkle in outdoor advertising technology -- the electronic digital billboard. It uses LED technology. The images shift every eight seconds, but there is no movement or flashing. Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings Inc. (NYSE:COO) will soon install eight of them in the Philadelphia area. On a drive-by, these billboards look like any other. But advertisers can remotely and instantaneously change messages -- no need to wait for a crew to scrape off one sign and install another. Blink.
That capacity can be useful in an emergency, the Phoenix-based company said. In Minneapolis, after the bridge collapsed, billboards quickly carried messages warning the traveling public about the danger.
The company has installed 76 of these billboards around the country in 14 markets and was supposed to put some of them up around here today. The rain put the kabosh on that plan.
Here are three questions:
1. Why delay so long in bringing this technology to Philadelphia? Maybe Akron, Ohio was an easier sell.
2. What will happen to all the employees -- and businesses -- that make their livelihoods by changing the signs on billboards?
3. Will these signs distract drivers?
