Electronic billboards enliven outdoor advertising

JAKARTA (JP): Outdoor advertising has been around for a long time, especially in the capital city, but this medium of communication did not take off until five years ago when agencies began to pay it more attention.

The Indonesian Association of Advertising Agencies estimated spending on outdoor ads in 1994 at US$88 million, more than three times as large as the $24.65 million spent in 1993.

As a percentage of total ad spending in the country, outdoor advertising's share is still less than 10 percent. The steady increase is an encouraging trend.

Now outdoor ads can be seen on buses, bus shelters, taxi cabs and large balloons, in addition to the conventional billboards, neon signs and poster ads.

"The outdoor advertising media have now become more competitive and their quality has improved as well," said Rima Szukri, an executive of the JWT AdForce, one of Indonesia's largest agencies.

Outdoor advertising has the necessary impact and also serves as a reminder by reinforcing the campaigns advertisers have put made through media, such as the print media and television, Rima added.

More recently, the city skyline has been enlivened with a more innovative concept of outdoor advertising -- computer-controlled, electronic display boards.

"Yes I have noticed them and I think the prospect of the electronic display boards is quite promising in view of their wide exposure to motorists who have to struggle with traffic jams," Rama added.

Rama foresaw the opportunities for outdoor advertising as almost limitless, especially with the emergence of such high-tech billboards as the electronic display boards.

There are now three electronic display boards in the capital city, located on top of the Atrium shopping complex in the Senen triangle area and at along the Blora and Majapahit roads.

Choi Byoung Soo, President of PT Indo Led Evastar, which installed the three-dimension, light emitting diodes (LED) electronic display board in the Senen triangle area, concurred that the high-tech medium will become increasingly popular for outdoor advertising.

"The users can create the characters, patterns in advance, using a personal computer, then send the data to the memory on the interface board of the electronic display board," Choi said in citing the practical use of such billboards.

Led Evastar

PT Indo Led Evastar, is a joint venture between an Indonesian company and Bong Oh Electronics Industrial Co.Ltd., the largest manufacturer of light emitting diode (LED) display boards in South Korea.

In fact, Choi added, LED display boards made by his company have a wide variety of types, sizes and functions to fit the applications and installation locations.

"Our LED display boards can also be used in financial institutions such as stock exchanges, commercial outlets such as department stores, airport terminals, bus and railway stations, sports stadiums and various other public places which require regular public information bulletins," he said.

A staff member of a big advertising company in South Jakarta, who wanted to remain anonymous said, however, that although computerization is a novelty, she still prefers old fashioned billboards.

"The problem with computerized boards is that from the visual effect is not too effective, because all the signs move too fast. So people cannot see our ad clearly and wholly, from a 30 second commercial maybe we can catch only three seconds of it," she told The Jakarta Post.

But Larry Pintak, Managing Director of TriComm Strategic Communications did not agree.

"Billboards can be extremely effective in Jakarta because of the traffic jams; people who sit in cars cannot escape them," said Pintak.

Effective

He said billboards are especially effective for advertising consumer products such as cigarettes and food.

Billboards are relatively more expensive than television commercials and other forms of indoor advertisements.

"And, for billboards, a producer should make a long-term commitment, while for advertising on TV there is no such requirement," Pintak said.

He said one advantage of billboards is that they reach everyone, therefore they are good for mass products. But for products which are not categorized as mass products, such as brand-named products like Cartier, a targeted-market magazine will be more effective.

"They can advertise, for example, in the internal magazine of the Mercantile Club," Pintak told the Post.

Competition

However, Pintak said a competition between outdoor and indoor advertisements does exist because producers have to budget where they will put their adds.

"But, again it depends on the kind of the products ... in some products they are overlap, in others there are some differences," said Pintak.

Major advertisers have never put money into one media alone, he said.

The more exposure the better the result, that is the reason advertisers usually put their commercials in accumulative media.

Douglas Khoo, media adviser of Indo-Ad, said basically there is no competition between indoor and outdoor advertisements because there are different purposes on the part of advertisers.

"It depends on what objective you want to achieve," Khoo said.

Outdoor advertising, such as billboards, is very good for reaching people who are mobile,like those in cars or buses. But because they are mobile, billboards should expose only simple and readable message. The brand names and pictures of the products can be put on the billboards, but more details about the product cannot be put there.

"The exposure of billboards is very short. Cars passing along Jl. Sudirman, for example, run at 60 to 80 kilometers per hour, so there is only three to five seconds to see the billboard. Therefore messages should be very simple," he said, adding that the effect will be stronger to those passing the street regularly.

Billboards, he said, help advertisers to enlarge their image about a product because of their gigantic scale.

But because of its static character, a billboard cannot be effective for products which sell their images.

"It is good only for brand name exposure and visualization, for imagery, ads in TV will do better," Khoo said.

To install a billboard is also not as simple as it may seem because good maintenance is required.

"Because of the weather, maintenance can be difficult," he said.

Billboards can be used as well as complimentary media.

"If your potential area for example is South Jakarta, you can install a billboard there as a complimentary extension to your ad put in other media," Khoo said, adding that basically there is no bad media, but everything depends more on the objective want to be achieved.

He said for cigarette producers, billboards can be a medium where they can expose the pack of their cigarettes since it is forbidden to show the pack on TV commercials.

Computerized electronic billboards, Khoo added, may have a better future if the graphics can be improved, for example by putting in more color and changing the dot-lines characters.

"That is precisely the technological advantage our LED display boards are offering. We supply LED dot-matrix units in various sizes," Choi said.

Choi added that LED displays also feature long service lives, excellent reliability, strong luminance, fine color and rapid response. (als/vin)