"The electronic medium of roadside LED boards presents the finest advertising fixture to tantalise the visual senses. LED boards deliver customisable adverts that are able to be altered seamlessly and rapidly. Movement attracts the human eye, and this medium uses this to the benefit of the advertiser."
The flexibility of LED boards makes them unique, as unlike static boards, changes to adverts are made electronically from the service provider's offices allowing the medium to cater to more needs than most other mediums. For example:
1. Price related adverts can be placed and updated daily.
2. There is no cost to the viewer to see the advert (unlike print ads where the publication must first be purchased).
3. Adaptability – utilises the visual senses to their fullest, flight and or change adverts in limited timeframes.
"The quality of creative on the roadside electronic boards is sub-standard on most boards, a factor negatively influencing the growth of this medium," says Jaco.
"In the spirit of constructive criticism I would like to suggest the following tips over and above your normal creative guidelines as they apply to all media.
Andries Grobbelaar, Graphic Designer at Nail Outdoor, says, "for the electronic screen medium, less is always more! The audience is viewing this from a vehicle as driver or passenger, is stationary or moving, and has only a brief moment to absorb the communication. The advert should open with a full screen, elaborate image, which is a sure winner to grab the viewer's attention. Use bright colours, bring in all the elements, and expose the frame long enough for your message to be taken in. LED screens deliver excellent brand awareness, sell products, and serve as superb information centres."
"For longer campaigns or regular clients, it works to allocate some animation which the viewer can retain and identify with the product or brand. Good visuals and a clean cut look are always best combined with different letter heights and colours to make the message interesting," Andries says.
The following advantages of advertising on electronic video billboards have been outlined by Robin Hide, General Manager: Electronics at Nail Outdoor:
1. Big Impact – The size and position of the screen is your guarantee that everybody passing the site has the chance to see your company's advertisement.
2. Animated Colour Advertisements –The impact of a moving colour advertisement is a sure fire recipe for advertising noting success.
3. Reward Your Customers – Advertising which is constantly moving and changing rewards the viewers.
4. Frequency – Sell to your customers and sell to them again and again (and again). On the Electronic Video Billboard your company's advertisement will be exposed to your consumer buying market a minimum of 480 times per day. That means your advertisement is flighted a whopping 14 400 times per month!
5. "Eliminate" Competitor Activity – Brand / Product category exclusively on each screen is part of the deal (for contract advertises).
6. Versatility and Flexibility – Your advertisement can be changed when you need them to be changed, even daily or weekly if you require it. Quickly, efficiently and inexpensively.
Jaco continues, "With such an effective, strictly visual medium, the visual quality of the medium should be nurtured, especially in the long run, assuming that you want a potential advertiser to consider it as a medium that is competitive with other mainstream media out there."
"This leads me to conclude that the creative on these boards are comparatively sub-standard and considering that this is a medium that can be visually compared to television, it is my opinion that this is where we should take our inspiration from. I realise that the LED board sector is relatively small, and that it cannot compare with the budget or lead times necessary to create the kind of productions television is capable of, but it doesn't mean that we can't aspire to compete on a creative level."
Owlhurst Communications CC
Chirene Campbell
Tel: (011) 884 2559
