Interactive Billboards: Bringing Billboards To Life

Creating effective advertising these days can be a challenge. There are so many ads out there that compete for our attention. In addition to that, there are so many mediums to choose from. Campaigns with all different objectives are created every day to promote brands and services. Their purpose could be to sell products, services or simply to create awareness. Today the best way to get a message across is to make sure that people stop and notice the ad. It’s the first priority. Thanks to technology, one way we can make sure people notice our ad is to make it responsive through interactive and/or digital billboards created from LCD and LED displays.

An example of a great interactive campaign is this interactive billboard placed at bus stops. The campaign’s objective was to raise awareness about careers in public service. The challenge for the ad agency was to create enough interest in people so that they might seriously consider pursuing a career in public health. The big idea was to give people the feeling that they are capable of saving a life.

The billboard consisted of a huge interactive screen that illustrated a patient dying (as morbid as that may be). When a passerby pushed the hand marks on the sign, the electrocardiogram beeped, indicating that the man came back to life. Right at that moment, a message read “Choose a career in public health, visit SaveLives.com.” It would be interesting to find out how many people interacted with the billboard, and even more importantly, how many of those registered and inquired about that career. Usually, for campaigns like this, it takes a couple months to find out the results.