“High Noon”

Once A Week, But Never Weakly

“High Noon”

by Nick Coston, U.S. Sales Mgr., The Neuron, OOH-DOOH Media Agent, Industry Writer

I have a dream. You guessed it, it’s a dream about millions of billboards. Not just any billboard, but crispy clear digital ones. Lots of them. Like all of them. The ones where lights don’t burn out. The ones that currently top over 65M in numbers, all connected. That’s 65 MILLION plus, connected digital displays. Worldwide. That number is growing every month. By a lot. We may well have passed 75M by the time I finish writing this.

That’s a lot of signage. That’s a lot of messages being communicated worldwide. On your street, on your highway, at the train station, in your schools, in the airport terminals, on your gas pumps, your car charging stations and even in the men’s room in cushy Houston restaurants. They are everywhere.

I like to dream big. Bigger they say is always better. What if, we as an industry, could harness all this bigness, all 65M plus digital displays for a 2 minute moonshot. 2 minutes of one message, worldwide. Just one time. No one will grow broke. But 100’s of millions upon millions of people worldwide will take notice. Not only will they take notice of the message but they’ll take notice of the collective power our industry has when we click “run” and that 2 minute rotating spot lights up. Imagine what Times Square would look like. Tokyo, Hong Kong, London, Bangkok. All the big splashy digital markets. Same ads rotating in same order. All at once. For two of the longest minutes in OOH history.

That’s big. Stunning. Breathtaking. Nothing else could compare. Newspapers can’t do it, static boards can’t do it, radio stations can’t do it and God forbid television stations pull something like this off. They can’t because they’re not all connected. Plus they don’t get along.

OOH peeps get along. We can. It’s possible. We are members of a special club. What a magnificent statement our club could make.

I don’t know who would spearhead this big a plan. Is it DPAA, is it OAAA, is it World Out of Home Association? Do we bypass the politics and just have the 5 biggest worldwide digital signage companies bully their way to make this happen, use their power to have everyone else join in?

Or is it just me writing an article Wednesday morning online post for OOH Today? Social media can work in strange and bizarre ways. Maybe that’s the answer.

We’re not talking about any new technologies, we’re talking about using existing digital signage, their connectivity and real passion. Someone has got to take the lead.

Think about it, for the last 2+ years the world has been bogged down in a never ending pandemic, which has seen more comebacks than Harrison Ford. And then out of nowhere a hideous war breaks out with the invasion of a sovereign, independent nation. It’s all over TV, you can’t not see what’s going on. It’s back to back mind-boggling disasters that has far reaching impacts all over the world. Adults, children, elderly. We are all burned-out.At least major league baseball is back, that would’ve been the third crushing blow.  What a welcome distraction, finally.

Think about it. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a breather? Wouldn’t it be satisfying to exhale for a couple of minutes? Wouldn’t it be gratifying to see exploding scoreboards instead of exploding housing complexes, so we can finally stop absorbing all this pain and see our way out of this ongoing series of nightmares? The world can look up from their smart phones and wherever they are, focus on one item for 2 minutes. Imagine the quiet that will be in the air. Consider the good will and the great thoughts that will come out of a simple two minutes.Got a couple of minutes? This Friday at 12 noon we do this. High noon. Worldwide. Everywhere where its high noon for two minutes. Come on, you can do it.

We have this incredible worldwide network of connected, digital displays at our fingertips. And it doesn’t cost one single cent to send this message. Nada, nothing, goose egg. Zero.

Two minutes for Ukraine.Thank you to the very talented billboard designer Wes Frick, for his original artwork, for this cause. Nothing makes a point better than eye catching creative and his is a perfect example of how we could rotate even just 3 versions of the same message. Nothing sends a message like bright powerful copy. And Wes is open to share this artwork in all formats. He’s that good a man.

What a dream come true this would be. 

High Noon on Friday.

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