Digital improves for billboards

In the world of billboard advertising, it's mostly been a matter of disappearing space.

For Mark Wold, general manager of Lamar Advertising Company in Cedar Rapids, things such as online advertising and social media offerings haven't affected the business of billboard advertising as much as zoning and available real estate in the Corridor.

“The city ordinances are fair, but we've been losing structures in the Corridor. And because of zoning issues, we haven't always been able to rebuild,” Wold said.

To determine board placement that's safe and aesthetically pleasing, outdoor advertising companies work with the city.

They also partner with the community to convey important information during weather emergencies, traffic situations and Amber Alerts.

“If a customer has a specific location they want that we can't provide, that becomes a big challenge,” said Deb Brogan, sales and development manager for MediaQuest Outdoor in Cedar Rapids. “But adding boards is helping us overcome that.”

If a long-standing customer wants to place an ad in a location MediaQuest doesn't have, Brogan said the company will investigate to see if a board can be placed there.

Steve Allsop, owner of MediaQuest, said the billboard advertising market has been relatively soft.

“We haven't seen great rises. If we hadn't added new boards, our revenue dollars would be about the same as they have been,” he said.

MediaQuest has six employees, with revenues of about $1 million.

Last year, Lamar's revenues were down from 2010, but Wold said 2011 and 2012 so far have held steady.

“There hasn't been a lot of growth, but there hasn't been a lot of drop-off. It's more a matter of maintaining where we are,” he said.

Lamar is a national company, with 140 offices across the country. The Cedar Rapids office was established in 1998 and employs 12.

Wold estimated 70 percent of Lamar's customers are local, and 30 percent are from accounts brought in through the national sales office in Baton Rouge, La.

His office receives phone calls from potential customers because of the information the company features on its own billboards about advertising options. Its biggest advertisers are car dealerships, cellphone providers, real estate agents and health care institutions.

Brogan says MediaQuest's best customers come from the gaming industry, such as casinos and the Iowa Lottery. Car dealerships, hospitals and financial institutions also are big customers.

Right now, 40 percent of MediaQuest's work is with repeat customers.

Lamar owns more than 200 signs in the Corridor, and MediaQuest has nearly 60 in a 50-mile radius of Cedar Rapids. These companies maintain a delicate balance of working with clients to identify goals and the parts of town in which they want to place their message.

“We work off of spreadsheets,” Brogan said. “We use them to keep track of our signs, and the months that they're available.”

While MediaQuest's contracts typically range from one month to a year, some customers use boards by the day, Allsop said.

“That's unusual, and it's only with our digital displays. But we have customers who have specials just for football game days, for example,” he said.

The type of billboard also makes a difference in the length of the contract. With traditional vinyl boards, contracts typically last at least six months due to the costs of the vinyl printing and installation.

For digital boards, contracts can be much more flexible.

Over the past few years, those digital boards have changed the outdoor advertising industry. In a spot that originally held one ad, six different messages now can be displayed, with the images rotating every 8 seconds.

If a digital customer wants to run a special on snowblowers after a big storm, for example, that old ad can be swapped out for a new ad in 10 minutes versus the 10 days it takes for vinyls to be printed and installed on a traditional board.

Customers can change their message as often as they'd like on a digital board, with no additional cost. They also have the option to change where their messages are displayed.

A local bank wants to display an ad on Blairs Ferry Road on Monday and a different message on Collins Road on Tuesday? With digital boards, that's easily done.

“Digital technology will continue to improve,” Allsop predicted. “Resolutions will get better and will look more like (the images on) TV sets.

“And the energy efficiency on these boards is already much better than it was three years ago.”

But even with the options that digital displays provide, he doesn't think vinyl boards will ever completely disappear.

“Some people like to have their ad displayed permanently, and they like to be the only one who has a message in that location.”