Digital billboards are cropping up everywhere and being used for a variety of reasons. From finding lost children  to innovative product branding, organizations are turning to digital billboards to reach a wider and more targeted audience. They deliver several benefits including:

• Billboards are harder to ignore compared to other forms of advertisement: digital billboards, especially along roads and highways, are harder to ignore.
  
  
• Content is easily updated: compared to vinyl billboards and conventional outdoor advertisement channels, changing the content of a digital billboard is easy.
  
  
• Time-specific delivery: Digital billboards can be set to automatically change content e.g. in a hotel, the breakfast menu can be shown in the morning and the dinner menu around dinner time.
  
  
• Location/precinct content targeting: digital billboards enable your organization/firm to target people in the vicinity of the billboard e.g. targeting road safety campaigns to road users.
  
  
• Location customization: you get to choose the location where you feel your ads will have the most impact.

This has seen big companies like Google, Coca-Cola, Samsung and Verizon increase their out-of-home (OOH) advertisement, especially using digital billboards according to the latest data from Outdoor Advertising Association of America (OAAA). So what are some of the trends to expect in relation to digital billboards in 2015?

• The costs of digital billboards will keep reducing: as the cost of LEDs decreases and their efficiency increases as affirmed by Panasonic, you can expect to see even lower acquisition and operating costs for digital billboards.
  
  
• Growth of digital signage as an LED market: The digital signage market for LEDs currently stands at about 13% with a growth rate of about 12% annually according to ElectroniCast. This is good news as it will lead to better economies of scale.
  
  
• More advertisement money will be spent on digital signage: this includes both a larger percentage of advertisement money in general and the money spent by organizations/businesses on digital billboards.

Data from OAAA shows OOH advertisement has been growing at a consistent rate of about 4% from 2010 and accounts for about 5% of all advertisement expenditure. Most of this is going to digital billboards and their percentage of ad expenditure will only continue to grow.

• Interest in digital signage shall keep rising: As advertisers keep pushing digital signage and its notoriety grows due to factors like Time Squares’ 24 million LEDs digital billboard and LG’s record breaking digital billboard in King Khaled International Airport, Saudi Arabia, you can expect the interest in digital signage and billboards to keep increasing in 2015.
  
  
• Increasing focus on software development to better leverage digital billboards: 2015 will see increasing focus on the role of software in digital signage. Web-based management tools and custom-made software like interactive mobile apps and analytics will push digital signage forward and make it a more efficient advertisement platform.
  
  
• The continued domination of retail as the largest digital signage client industry: The retail industry, which was the single largest individual client industry of OOH advertising channels at roughly $542 billion dollars in 2014 will continue to be the largest OOH advertiser and especially in digital signage according to OAAA.

This is due to the inherent advantage of precinct advertisement to retailers and the rising popularity of 10nm digital signs.

A more conducive regulatory environment: This is as municipalities and towns embrace digital billboards as revenue-generating opportunities and information dissemination platforms e.g. for Amber alerts.

Digital billboards have proven themselves as an efficient tool for any marketer. As costs associated with digital billboards reduce and related technology e.g. software gets better, expect more businesses and firms of all sizes to leverage them in their marketing efforts.