Nowadays, electronic signs become more and more popular. The two main LED billboards or electronic signs are spectaculars and roadside displays. The first one is the most expensive. In this application electronic signs appeared as sign components to Times Square and Las Vegas spectaculars. Louis M. Brill describes: "In Times Square you can come across three or four LED video spectaculars all at once. The most prominent is the front (its north face) of One Times Square, which is filled up with LED video billboards, as many of them surround Times Square buildings with equally overwhelming LED displays, including NASDAQ (Smartvision), ABC NEWS (Multimedia, Rancho Cordova, California) or Lehman Brothers (Daktronics - Brookings, South Dakota)."

Granted electronic signs are much more expensive and there are still sign code issues to be dealt with. However, electronic signs are beginning to dot the highways as a new form of outdoor advertising. Herewith lies the challenge to electronic signs; is it a technological wonder or will it be a supplement to work hand-in-hand with print as an outdoor advertising presence?
Some investigations that were done in the area of electronic billboards show interesting results. The bad new is: "Sign Code Issues twenty four percent of states in the United States prohibit moving or animated signs. Twenty nine percent of the U.S. have timing limits on electronic billboards. Most of the United States prohibits flashing red lights and anything that causes a glare or vision impairment.

Electronic billboards cost more than standard billboards. The average CPM (cost per thousand) for a regular billboard is two dollars and five cents and thirty seven dollars and forty two cents for a LED billboard. Billboards with LED's are rented by minutes and each ad is shown for eight seconds. Some ads can cost as much as fifty thousand dillars for two thousand five hundred and twenty minutes (one point seventy five days) and as little as one thousand and two hundred dollars for six hundred and forty eight minutes (.forty five days.) impairment."(www. bpsoutdoor.com/articles/lads.htm) If you consider the fact that the aforementioned cost issues will decrease as new (and less expensive) display technologies become available, you will find some pleasant news: "Studies have shown that LEDs are six times more effective than traditional billboards. Electronic billboards may be so effective as they are animated unlike anything else outdoors. Another reason they are so effective is that people do not get tired of these ads since they change every few seconds. We tend to pay attention to things that are different and that we have not seen before.

Research has shown that ninety four percent of people passing mobile billboards can recall them while only forty three percent can recall non-moving billboards. Overall, the sales increased one hundred and seven percent for products shown on mobile billboards and fifty four percent on static signs." (ibid.)

With such an 'indoor' success that electronic signs systems have, you can easily imagine how equally successful they will be outdoors as well. Electronic billboard displays provide such things like brightness, contrast and presentation of the message to people moving at 60 MPH.