To Be Announced...

About a month ago, the Cedar Rapids Gazette had a glowing (pardon the pun) report on the new digital billboard on Collins Road near the Lindale Mall. The article mostly praised the technology and heralded the "new era" of billboard advertising.

Not so in Des Moines...

No new digital billboards for now, D.M. council orders

A 60-day moratorium on new digital billboards was unanimously approved on Monday by the Des Moines City Council.

The temporary measure prohibits the construction of new digital billboards and the conversion of existing billboards to enable the technology.

City Councilman Tom Vlassis, who proposed the moratorium, is concerned that intermittent image changes on digital billboards could pose traffic hazards.

Yeah...like those Burma Shave signs in the 50's. Was there anything more distracting than that? Having to take your eyes off the road every 1/10 of a mile to read the next line in the poem? Did we get smarter or dumber since then?

City leaders will spend the next two months studying the safety, land use and aesthetic implications of digital-billboard advertising.

No one spoke in favor of digital billboards during the meeting.

Okay. There's a few things there that leave me suspicious. If they're concerned about the safety of the billboards as far as roadside distractions go...why study land use and aesthetic implications? What do they have to do with road safety? Couldn't you study ALL billboards with the same criteria?

As the article pointed out:

Minnetonka, Minn., officials recently cut power to two Clear Channel digital billboards. A district court judge affirmed the city's action last month.

It's so different from an article a week ago in the Des Moines Business Record...

Digital signs: Attention getter or distraction?

"The jury is still out," said Lance Stumbo, an advertising management agent for the Iowa Department of Transportation.

Although digital billboards are new to Des Moines, they've been up in other U.S. cities for about five years and in European markets for about a decade, according to Jameson. Des Moines is not the first Iowa city to have this type of billboard. Another outdoor media company, Lamar Advertising Co., has similar signs in Cedar Rapids,Waterloo and Dubuque.

That's not long enough to gather safety data? Heck, just compare year to year accident reports within a certain radius of the signs...that should give you at least some preliminary data.

So it must be something else they're more concerned about.

Critics of digital billboards worry that the new signs are too effective at getting attention...So far, the city of Des Moines does not consider the new sign to be a safety hazard. Larry Hulse, the city's community development director, said he has received only one complaint so far about the sign being a distraction. Hulse said the city plans to continue its research on the technology and rewrite its sign code to include guidelines on digital billboards.

"We don't see any 'red flags' to suggest that these signs shouldn't be allowed," Hulse said. "They don't seem to be much different than the normal billboard because the messages aren't animated or overly bright."

Can you see why I'm suspicious?

There are some people opposed at anything too effective at getting people's attention to buy something.

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