More than 50 pages longer than the previous edition, Sign Gallery 6 presents recent Signs of the Times competition winners, honorable mentions, and others in this expanded edition of electric ...
Darek's October 2009 column
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In October, Dr. Nisa Khan’s EDS column analyzed electronic digital billboards, as did Bob Klausmeier’s regular appearing ST column. Nisa included Ashton Kutcher’s Twitter contest win over CNN.com, an event proposed by Oprah Winfrey, last April.
If you missed it (I did), Kutcher agreed to a social media (Twitter) popularity contest against CNN.com news, while on air at the Oprah television show. The parties agreed the winner would donate to malaria relief in Africa.
You may remember that Kutcher is Demi Moore’s husband. This, in my book, makes him famous. On a lesser scale, he was a “That ’70s Show” actor and has also made several movies.
Kutcher — does he have a marketing department? — quickly convinced Lamar Advertising to promote his side in the Twitter contest. It subsequently narrowcast “Follow Aston Kutcher on Twitter” via its 1,133 electronic billboards.
Nisa, commenting on the ad industry disregard for LED-based displays, wrote, “LED-based lamps, a sizzling topic in the lighting and semiconductor industries, are occasionally examined in the general media, but, interestingly, the advertising and communication media, despite Ashton Kutcher’s efforts, hasn’t seemed to notice the LED-based, electronic-media phenomena.”
Kutcher won. He scored more than one million followers. One source estimated Kutcher’s message reached 34 million people.
Nisa wrote that Advertising Age magazine had “ . . . roared over Twitter’s success with this event, but then asked if Kutcher should be disqualified for using ‘old school advertising.
-->Billboards.
Lamar illuminated its electronic billboards for Kutcher within a few hours of the request. The production line followed Lamar’s AMBER-Alert™ system.
Nisa asked if the magazine’s Madison Avenue-type readers weren’t aware of modern, LED-based billboard technology.
In a related story, David Steele, University of South Florida Polytechnic’s director of university advancement (He said, "Marketing is 75% message and the other half mischief."), grabbed the opening. Upon seeing the Kutcher billboard, he immediately initiated an on-campus, electronic-billboard message that said, “Ignore Aston Kutcher.”
The message included the college Twitter address that, Steele said, received a record number of hits.
Obviously, billboards — signs — work.
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