APN Outdoor’s first digital billboard in the Sydney CBD is now lighting up a Darlinghurst intersection, where it aims to reach an audience of millions.
APN Outdoor’s first digital roadside billboard, the Darling, hopes to capture the attention of 2.5 million audience contacts
Clients Lion Nathan, Mercedes, Optus and Microsoft are the first to see their campaigns up in lights on the city’s first roadside, large format, high-definition digital billboard, which APN Outdoor says will enjoy exposure to almost 2.5 million audience contacts in a month. Charmaine Moldrich, CEO of the Outdoor Media Association says wide format printing has no need to fear digital billboards, she says, “There will always be a place for static – we have not seen the end of printing by any means.” The so-called Darling billboard marks the completion of APN’s large format digital rollout across Australia’s largest capital cities, setting up eight installations including Australia’s biggest digital billboard on Melbourne’s Young & Jackson Hotel and the Digital Queen billboard in Brisbane’s CBD. Richard Herring, CEO of APN Outdoor, says, “In 2013 we have relentlessly rolled out new digital billboard inventory across the six major cities in Australia and New Zealand. Turning on the Darling for the first time gives the whole company a sense of satisfaction and achievement because we are the first outdoor company to offer roadside, large format digital billboards on a national scale to advertisers. “We are now looking forward to seeing the excitement it causes in the market and what creative directions advertisers will take to capitalise on this dynamic medium.” The Australian Outdoor Media Association’s (OMA) report for the Out-of-Home (OOH) industry in the third quarter for 2013 shows that digital is currently the industry’s strongest sector, representing 10.8 per cent of revenue – up from 7.5 per cent share at the end of 2012. Charmaine Moldrich says she expects continued growth in the fast-growing Australian outdoor digital space as new inventory is made available. Moldrich tells Australian Printer, “The digital realm offers innovation in things like occupational health and safety, so people don’t have to change signs, and dayparting of products and services for advertisers, as well as using multiple creatives in the one campaign period. “Digital makes sense. We are now seeing inventory in pedestrian places like shopping centres becoming more digitised. It is growing rapidly, but I don’t see it becoming 100 per cent of our inventory in the near future, print will always play a part.” The OMA expects strong results for the whole out-of-home sector in this year’s fourth quarter, buoyed by the lead up to Christmas – and now possibly some extra cash generated by the latest digital installations.
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