Again an interesting question from one of you, sent via the yellow note on the right menu: "Hi! I have a question. How does agencies charge advertising on their LED billboards?..the most common way Thanks for all, keep on the good work."

Dear Tom, this is actually one of the most important things the advertising agency must do. Creating a well thought schedule where all the advertising spaces are fine tuned, is crucial to optimize the profits derived from the LED screen.
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Yesterday I had an aperitive with one of our Customers and of course we were talking about LED video walls.

He is a talented entrepreneur who worked several years for big multinationals such as Coca-Cola and Nestlé and then started to distribute our LED products worldwide.

While talking, he told me the story of one of his Clients. Click to Continue

After you took care of the designer, you must absolutely take care of the content he/she creates for the LED billboard. Here the basic rules of content.

First rule of content: complex vs. simple.

There are two different schools about the ad content. The first claims that the ad should be as creative as possible, in order to get the attention. It seems a pretty clear and justified goal: a paying customer should get the most memorable ad possible.

The second school, on the flip-side, claims that the memorable ads may boost the agency pride, but not the customer's profits. So making an ad too funny or too memorable, might not be the best for your customer. Usually this would happen because people concentrate so much on the content, to become blind to the brand or product. From my point of view, in this case as everything in life, balance is the best solution.

Second rule of content: fresh is king.

On your LED video wallthere must be always be some fresh, updated, curious or useful content. Not ads only. Otherwise people get accustomed to the LEDwall and will stop looking at it. You must always provide constantly updated content: ideally you should upload new useful content every day! Yes, every day.

Even basic information as the temperature, the weather forecast for the next few days, the fact of the day, the name day, the random quote of the day will incredibly increase the stickiness to your LEDwall.

If you manage to get people looking at the screen over time, for example because they are curious about the next random quote, you simultaneously achieve two results: 1. people will start commenting and therefore talking about the LED screen, which is free publicity and 2. probably most important, you get an incredibly strong selling point with your Customers because you can somehow prove them the reason why people will look at the screen and in the end why they should advertise on your LEDwall.

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Here we go with other terrible mistakes you should absolutely avoid when creating new content for your LED screen.

As you can very well imagine, the KEY role in the LEDwall content creation is the designer. Many people don’t realize how fundamental this role is, because they are too concentrated on selling the ads spaces. The point is, if you have a good designer, your ads will sell themselves. If you don’t have a good designer, it doesn’t matter what a great salesman you are… you will not sell a single space!

So the first rule of designer is: one more little effort.

If you installed a digital billboard, you probably have made quite an investment. I know at this point you don’t want to hear about further expenses anymore. I perfectly understand that. But please, please, do not make the unforgivable mistake to save on the Ads designer. Having an inexperienced person creating the ads (i.e. your teenage nephew) is like giving your brand new Ferrari to a first-time driver. I know you already spent lots money, but try not to waste more by poorly managing your investment.

Second rule of designer: know what you he/she does!

Sometimes I look at ads that are so badly designed that I actually would like to call and complain. I feel like even I could do better than that and I bet other people think the same. To avoid such situations, send your ads designer in front of the screen at least 1 hour a week, to check by person what is he doing and how the ads appear to the final audience. I promise you that the first few times, he will change 50% of the content of each single ad of your electronic billboard!

If you want to get the most out of your digital billboard (and you Customers) in terms of recognition from the audience, this article will tell which are the worsts mistake people make when creating a new Ad.

If you read the past few posts, you know why text and numbers appear blurry on a LEDwall with virtual pixel. You cant solve that, but at least try not to make it worse! The FIRST Rule of formatting when creating text (ie. the address, phone number etc) for a LEDwall Ad is... Ready? MAKE LETTERS BIIIG! At least 1/4 of the screen! I cant understand those designers that create super small text, that might look nice on their PC or MAC monitor when they create it, but its terrible when broadcast on the LEDwall.

Second Rule of Formatting: Do Not Apply Shades or Glossy Effects On Text.

Get it? As said before, this fancy effects might look nice on the monitor, but they definetly they are not cool on the electronic billboard. The reason for it is that, despite of its huge size, the LEDwall has actually LESS pixels than you PC monitor. MUCH less pixels. So it is pointless to create special shining effects on a 5 centimeters letter that look big on a PC but its invisible on a LED screen.

Third Rule of Formatting: Use Sans-Serif Fonts ONLY.  

If the text looks blurry on the LEDwall, we should make any possible effort to make things better. Serif fonts (ie. Courier, Times New Roman etc) are very nice on the PC monitor but they do have the Serifs which add pointless "noise" to the text and make it look less clear. Imagine this situation amplified by the "blurry" effect of the virtual pixel. Not good. Instead use Sans-Serif fonts such as Verdana or Tahoma, as they appear much more readable on the LED billboard. And if you absolutely have to use a "noisy" font, at least please use it in BIG size.

Fourth Rule of Formatting: Use Contrasting Colors.  

Over 20 years ago Ms Karen E. Claus published a table, indicating the color-match with the best contrast ratio. She did it for the classic static signage, but the principle is still valid today. According to her research and studies, the best matches are: Black on Yellow - Black on White - Yellow on Black - White on Blue - Yellow on Blue - Green on White - Blue on Yellow - White on Green. Please use text colors in such combinations and try to avoid such things as Pink-on-Red.

Fifth Rule of Formatting: The Most PLAIN the text is, the better.

On LEDwalls, you have 10/15 seconds to make your Ad memorable. It means that if the text is not clear at the first sight, people wont give it a second chance. Remember that they are most probably driving at about 35 km/h and hopefully they are more concerned about the road rather than about a fuzzy headline.

Ok, thats it for now. If you have any further question, use the yellow form in the homepage to contact me. Ill be glad to answer your questions. Oh, before I forget, in the next post, we'll discuss about the importance of a key role in the Ad creation process for LED video walls...