Digital TV ads back on the roadside

The billboard on Lincoln Rd. Picture / Glenn Jeffrey

Outdoor digital billboard advertising returns to Auckland this week, more than a year after the lights went out on a similar venture.

PopTech Media has built a 20sq m Philips Vidiwall advertising screen beside Lincoln Rd, West Auckland, the first in a planned national network of electronic billboards.

Director Mike Nathan said advertising on the screen would cost $15,000 a month and be viewed by motorists in about 35,000 cars that passed the site daily. The billboard used C-nario software to show TV-style ads, said Nathan, and cost between $500,000 and $1 million to install.

"It looks great, it's high tech and the beauty of this thing is that it sort of brings New Zealand into the 21st century in terms of advertising media."

OnScreen Advertising Sales - a newly established division of Hawkhurst Media Services - signed an airline, university and TV network among the screen's foundation advertisers, said business development manager Tony Scott.

He said many advertisers would prefer an inner-Auckland location and securing resource consents for more screens would be key.

A previous attempt to launch a digital billboard in Auckland ended in February last year when the plug was pulled on a 5m by 4m screen, built on the corner of Fanshawe and Halsey Sts by Digital Light Solutionz.

The operation was liquidated following a six-month trial of the screen.

Nathan said Digital Light Solutionz, of which his business partner Guy Keren was also a director, was not a failure and was liquidated due to disagreements between its New Zealand and overseas investors.

He said the PopTech Media venture had new investors and used new technology: "It's a completely different ballpark."

I-Site Media sold advertising for the Digital Light Solutionz's billboard trial. I-Site's chief executive Paul Kenny said despite problems with the electronic billboard, it was a sales and marketing success and "full from day one".

But Kenny believed the current flattening advertising market was not an ideal time to launch.