Clear Channel Outdoor CMO Dan Levi says billboards are a data-backed brand medium, not the oldest, dumbest ad format.
Anna Bager, CEO of the Out-of-Home Advertising Association of America, argues billboards are among the least intrusive ads because they cannot be skipped or blocked.
Around 65% of the US billboard industry is controlled by Lamar Advertising, Out Front Media and Clear Channel Outdoor, a concentrated market in a $9bn business.
Billboards are becoming a data-driven auction business
The oldest advertising medium is being rebuilt as a data business. Billboard supply is capped by regulation and concentrated among a few operators, while digital screens and phone location data let them sell audiences through auctions instead of fixed spots. That gives a $9bn industry a way to compete in an ad market dominated by Facebook and Google.
Takeaways
Three firms control two-thirds of billboards. Clear Channel Outdoor and its two national rivals, Lamar Advertising and Out Front Media, hold about 65 percent of a $9bn US out-of-home market. Clear Channel has more than 60,000 faces and sells to Disney, Apple, Netflix and Morgan and Morgan alongside local businesses.
Billboards run as a real estate business. A real estate team signs landowners, who take a flat fee or 10 to 30 percent of revenue. A standard 14 by 48 foot bulletin costs $100,000 or more to build. Rents range from hundreds of dollars to hundreds of thousands, averaging about $4,000 a month.
Digital screens turn slots into millisecond auctions. US digital billboards more than doubled between 2018 and 2023. A typical board rotates up to eight ads of about eight seconds, sold programmatically to the highest bidder. Advertisers buy audiences instead of freeways and can swap creative by time of day, scores or news.
Phone location data defines each board's audience. Levi says app location feeds reveal the prior behavior of devices without following individuals. A coffee shop seeking Starbucks drinkers would choose a board where half of a million weekly impressions come from coffee-shop visitors over one where only 20 percent do.
Big brands now lock in locations long term. Four-week contracts used to be standard. Apple, Disney, Netflix, Verizon and GEICO now sign perm contracts that hold specific locations long term. Clear Channel tells advertisers to keep copy to seven words or fewer with a single image.
Layered regulation caps where boards can go. The 1965 Highway Beautification Act limited construction, and Alaska, Hawaii, Maine and Vermont ban billboards. Los Angeles has more than 70 municipalities with their own sign rules, so a sign allowed on one side of a road can be barred across the street.
The case for billboards and the case against
Bager says billboards cannot be skipped or blocked, and people share them.
She argues they reach audiences across political divides, exposing people to messages they might avoid in polarized news and TV.
She calls them among the least intrusive ads because they do not interrupt what people are doing.
Scenic America has fought new billboards for more than 40 years, and landlords restrict categories such as alcohol and cannabis near schools and parks.
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