Digital billboards light up along lincoln roads

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By DEENA WINTER / Lincoln Journal star

You’re stopped at the light at 48th and Normal. You look up and see a crisp, TV-screen-like billboard touting Time Warner Cable.

You look back at the stoplight. It’s still red. You look up and the billboard has changed: now it’s advertising Bellevue University.

But it’s the same billboard.

And that’s when you realize digital billboards have arrived in Lincoln.

They’re lit up with light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, just like the jumbo video screens in Memorial Stadium.

Digital billboards are the hot new thing in outdoor advertising. Unlike the typical vinyl billboards, digital billboards can switch advertisements every few seconds through remote computer commands.

The billboards were legalized by the city in December, and Lamar Outdoor Advertising recently erected two in Lincoln with a third on the way.

The company hopes to have a half dozen up in Lincoln within a couple of years, a tiny percentage of the roughly 150 billboard structures Lamar has in Lincoln.

On Lamar’s digital billboards, a half dozen advertisers can make their pitch with one 10-second spot per minute. Lamar allows them to change the ad as often as they want, at no extra charge. The message can be changed, online, within minutes.

“They can advertise a breakfast special in the morning and a noon special at noon,” Lamar sales manager Scott Morton said.

That means more advertisers  (ie: revenue) on a single billboard, and the advertising company doesn’t have to send a crew of two or three workers to wrestle with 50- to 100-pound vinyl signs monthly.

But they’re expensive; Morton said the billboards require an initial investment of about $250,000.

“They’re extremely expensive and obviously when you put one of those up, it has to be an absolute marquee location and there aren’t an unlimited supply of those,” Morton said.

According to the Outdoor Advertising Association of America, there are about 500 digital billboards nationwide, compared to about 167,000 traditional billboards.

Jessica Yarmey, director of marketing research for the OAAA, said most digital billboards rotate through six to eight advertisers, at eight-second intervals.

Digital billboards are popping up nationwide, but the technology has met resistance in some jurisdictions where opponents worry that they’re too distracting to drivers. Some Lincoln residents opposed them for that reason.

But neither the city nor Lamar has received any complaints since they went up. 

Yarmey said the digital billboards are more like a power-point than a TV ad.

“They’re not moving messages,” she said. “It’s not a scrolling message. It’s not flashing lights. It’s a static sign just like the signs (that) exist right now.”

Mike Petersen, who handles sign permits for the city, said the digital billboards cannot blink, flash or be animated and must hold each “message” for at least 10 seconds.

“So in as much as they look like a TV screen, they can’t look like a TV screen,” he said.

That 10-second hold is longer than the national standard expected to be announced by the Outdoor Advertising Association later this month. (Yarmey said they’ll likely recommend at least a six-second hold.)

In Lincoln, digital billboards must be at least 5,000 feet apart and adhere to brightness standards. They’re required to be turned off between midnight and 5 a.m., except if they’re used for public emergency announcements, such as Amber Alerts.

Morton said Lamar is expected to double its number of digital billboards nationwide from about 300 a year ago to 600 by year’s end.

“In my opinion, it’s the wave of the future for our business,” he said.

Reach Deena Winter at 473-2642 or dwinter@journalstar.com.