Biz Idea: Electronic billboards on stop lights
A few weeks ago, I decided that I would start posting various business ideas to my blog. These ideas will be those that I believe are great ideas, but don’t plan on pursuing them any time in the near future. I’d love to hear your comments and thoughts regarding the potential; it would also be nice to know if you have heard of someone that is already trying to accomplish the idea or if would be seriously interested in pursuing the idea.
So here’s the first idea: Electronic billboards on Stop lights.
We’ve all seen the newest/latest electronic billboards on the side of our local interstate highways — large plasmaTV-like billboards that grab your attention and flash several advertisements on the screen. This idea would use a similar screen with flashing advertisements and place it up on the stop lights of your city. Now… before you get upset with me thinking, “Brock, that’s a stupid idea — way too many accidents would happen because drivers would be distracted by the advertisement and wouldn’t pay attention to the changing lights!”, here me out for a second.
The electronic billboard would have to be connected to the timer of the stoplight and only flash advertisements when the light is red. When the light is green or yellow, the billboard would display the name of the street — removing the distractions that might otherwise occur.
The owners of the billboard could charge a premium for the advertising spot because it is gauranteed that you will have a captive audience! What else can people do when they are waiting for the light to change other than stare up at the stoplight?!
This idea would be very difficult to implement because you would have to work with the city/county governments (and we all know how difficult that could be). But, if you could get over that hump…I really believe that you would have a VERY successful business. What do you think?
I have to agree, getting city councils to approve public space for advertising would be difficult.
But it would not be significantly different than the Elevator advertisments placed hear on the Captivate Network.
They might be interested in such a business, after all, their business already includes captive audiences and video
Great Idea Brock!
I think the way to grease the wheels with the city/county folks would be to split the revenue with them. If you were to arrange a 50/50 split with the government offices I bet you could move it through pretty easily.
Another thing that would help is if you were able to give the governments override on the signs and allow them to use them for public emergency messages, or make it so the lower portion of the screen was available to them all the time. If they could run Amber alerts, important announcements, etc through the signs it would be a huge benefit to them.
Finally, if you’re tying into the light timing system anyway, it would be great if you provided a countdown timer to how long until the light changed. They do this on some walk/don’t walk signs and it’s great. Plus, people would pay even more attention to the sign if it was counting down.
Hmm. Maybe it’s time to go into the hardware business
Brock,
Not that I make a habit of commenting on old posts, but I think this one is worth commenting on. To quote a very wise Brock Blake who once wrote “Brock, that’s a stupid idea” I would like to add my two cents: Brock, that’s a stupid idea.
Imprinting company logos and company adds on toilet paper for public restrooms; now there’s a cash cow waiting to happen. Would there be an implied message once the toilet paper is removed for use? Okay. Maybe imprinting competitors logo’s on toilet paper…
How’s life Brock?
does anyone know how one would go about purchasing a billboard. Can you just buy land and place advertisments on billboards or does it have to be approved by the city?
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