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IT IS being hailed as a revolution in outdoor billboard advertising: giant digital screens that change their message at the click of a button. From supermarkets flagging up what lines are going on discount at any given time, to airlines promoting a last-minute seat sale, the potential is limitless.

The one problem is the high cost of traditional flat panel light-emitting diode (LED) screens, meaning the revolution has been slow in coming. But rich pickings await those who get it right: global out-of-home advertising expenditure topped $25bn (£12bn, E17.3bn) last year with America, on $6.3bn, the biggest single market.

Britain – number four by 2006 outdoor expenditure, on $1.7bn – already has 154,000 outdoor sites; it is expected to crack $2bn for the first time this year. Litelogic, a London company, claims to have found a way to make mass outdoor digital advertising affordable. Its technology, which uses LEDs that spin at very high speeds, creating images in the same way as cartoon animation, costs a 10th of conventional LED flat panels.

Litelogic’s Revolution billboards are bright enough to shine out even in direct sunlight. The technology grew out of special effects developed for the film industry and used in movies including Batman Returns.

The Revolution 360 is the first digital outdoor display that is viewable from 360 degrees and is the equivalent of three bus-stop size billboards acting as a single screen. It claims to be the world’s highest resolution outdoor LED display.

Outdoor advertising companies would have to pay about £400,000 for the equivalent standard LED flat panel screens. Litelogic’s Revolution 360 costs less than £40,000.
The advertising industry has been enthusing about outdoor digital screens for years, but the huge capital expenditure required has been a brake on progress. With more than 40 companies making traditional LED screens, there is no shortage of competition. Litelogic is hopeful its technology will give it the edge.

James Burrows, Litelogic’s chief executive, said: “We have the most innovative technology and we are scaleable: on price, power consumption, weight and quality. The return on investment just stacks up.”

The technology is impressive on paper, but has yet to prove itself. Streetbroadcast, Britain’s largest so-called lamppost advertising agency, only recently began installing Revolution screens, with just 25 going up in five cities, including Glasgow and Coventry. The intention is to roll out 1,000 screens across Britain by 2009, making this the world’s largest outdoor digital billboard network.

Outdoor poster advertising is sold in two-week blocks. Digital advertising can be sold in time slots, rather like broadcasting. This means poster advertising – currently dominated by blue-chip brands with multi-million pound budgets – can be opened up to the thousands of advertisers who currently use the internet. Outdoor advertising shifts from strategic to tactical: a digital billboard promoting snacks when schools finish for the day could switch to Red Bull at pub closing time.

Outdoor advertising is second only to the internet in advertising growth, and much of it is driven by digital innovation. Litelogic says it is talking to all the big billboard companies, including Clear Channel and JC Decaux. They are already using traditional LED screens: JC Decaux is to deploy more than 600 digital panels at British airports from March 2008, while Titan Outdoor is set to roll out digital billboards across Network Rail stations.

CBS Outdoor has been conducting trials of a cross-track projection system where advertising images are projected onto walls opposite passengers waiting for Tube trains. CBS expects to roll out this hi-tech advertising across 24 London Underground stations from early 2008.

Whichever technology wins, spinning LEDs or flat panels, one thing is certain: the tatty, faded billboard poster has had its day.