Digital outdoor advertising will be the most interesting advertising format of the next ten years. With a little thought, it can also do something for the reputation of the advertising industry itself.
One exciting aspect of digital OOH is rather obvious. The posters move.
They can also be updated in real time. So it is possible to advertise a holiday destination, say, by comparing the current temperature with that in London. Or to promote live auctions or competitions with current results. A major broadcaster, for instance, could display live, minute-by-minute telephone voting statistics on the name of the new studio cat, before simply ignoring the votes completely and using whichever name they liked best.
But, perhaps more interesting still is this: they change. This means that each site can display a wide range of executions, some even specific to the time of day.
To cap all this, they have what all posters share: a certain scale and presence. So the digital form can combine the spectacle of great outdoor with the contextuality of great digital work. Already I am excited.
Unfortunately they also share with conventional billboards that little problem with which many sensitive advertising people have expressed discomfort. They do nothing for the people who are forced to look at them.
This is not to say great poster advertising cannot be a pleasure to look at - it can. But whereas all other forms of advertising (bar spam and - arguably - direct mail) clearly bring a secondary benefit to a voluntary viewer or reader (by paying for the programmes or subsidising the cover price of a magazine or newspaper), this is not true of outdoor. Reading posters is an involuntary act whose benefits accrue only to the site's owner. With the exception of Adshels, which do provide some of their readers with temporary accommodation, they probably, on balance, damage the environment.
It is for this reson that David Ogilvy and Howard Luck Gossage wanted billboards banned. The same logic drove Lady Bird Johnson's support of the Highway Beautification Bill in the US.
As is often the case, technology might now provide a better solution to this problem than legislation.
One prediction I made recently was that the widespread adoption of GPS would soon make it possible to remove the great majority of roadsigns. Although no-one complains about roadsigns (like TV aerials, they have become invisible through ubiquity) their removal would be a great blessing. Many geographic roadside hoardings (McDonald's 250m Left) could be removed physically, appearing virtually on GPS screens instead.
But other sites could perhaps earn their keep with passers-by in another way. How? If it were simply agreed among the major contractors that 20-30% of all messages to appear on large outdoor screens were to be for the benefit of the wider "host" community - these messages complementing those of the paying advertiser. News reports, weather forecasts, travel news, tube delays, sports scores, local advertising, art, poetry, philosophy....
This would not necessarily be to the disadvantage of the site owners - or indeed to advertisers. It would prevent a massive surplus of inventory, and it would mean that many screens would enjoy greater dwelltime.
Anyone who remembers Poems on the Underground will know of the public affection this kind of thing can generate. The trick will be to make sure that some of this positive feeling rubs off on the much-despised ad industry.
