Magnosticism

The current issue of The Advertiser includes a feature I wrote on the increasing influence of digital technology in out-of-home advertising. The out-of-home segment – a market consisting of billboards, mall displays, and basically any other venue that can hold LCDs or traditional signage – is a small but growing slice of the overall advertising pie. The article is here, courtesy of The Pohly Company, which publishes the magazine for the Association of National Advertisers.

Not everyone is thrilled with the digital transition of outdoor signage. Google “digital outdoor advertising” and you’ll find any number of stories from local papers or TV outlets on some town’s attempts to ban digital billboards from their roadways. Here’s an amusing one from Arkansas, which chronicles the fight of a Fayetteville citizen who filed a federal lawsuit charging that his First Amendment rights were violated when local officials fined him for his digital sign; this righteous individual claims the authorities simply didn’t like the religious and anti-abortion messages he was displaying on the sign.  Well now, that’s a whole separate discussion for another time and place.