Electronic billboards enliven outdoor advertising

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)