Digital or static billboard: how to choose the right board for your message

Static for constant presence, digital for flexibility

Choose a static bulletin when you want one message seen constantly by the same drivers for the whole campaign, and choose a digital billboard when you want to change your message often, run several offers or time your ad to the hour. A static board gives you the entire face all day, every day. A digital board shares a screen with other advertisers in a rotation, but lets you update the ad as often as you like with no production cost. Many businesses end up using both for different jobs.

I walk owners through this choice almost every week at Lamar's Dallas–Fort Worth Billboard Office, and the right answer depends far more on what you want to say than on which format sounds more modern. Here is how I think about it.

How a static bulletin works

A bulletin is the big board most people picture when they hear the word billboard. At Lamar it is our largest standard board, typically 14 feet high by 48 feet wide, or 672 square feet, placed on major highways, expressways and primary arteries where it is seen by drivers, commuters and long-distance travelers.

Your ad is produced at full size and installed on the face, and it stays there for the whole run. Nobody else shares that space, so every driver who passes sees your message, whether it is seven in the morning or midnight. That constant presence is the main reason owners choose static: the same commuters pass the same spot day after day and your name becomes part of their route.

Static bulletins also allow creative tricks that digital screens cannot. According to Lamar, an ad can extend an extra 5 feet at the top, 2 feet at the side and 1 foot at the bottom, and our designers can add 3D props, moving parts and lighting effects. A board that literally breaks its frame is hard to forget.

How a digital billboard works

A digital billboard is a large LED display that shows a sequence of ads. According to Lamar, ads rotate in a slide show every 6 to 8 seconds, and you can change your message weekly, daily, hourly or in real time. Lamar also says your ad can be on the board within minutes and that changes have no production cost, because nothing has to be printed or installed.

Digital boards can also show live information. Lamar notes that anything live on a website can be streamed to its digital boards, including countdowns, time, temperature, live scores and news feeds. For an event, a sale that ends on a specific day or a business that wants to react to the weather, that is a real advantage.

The trade-off is sharing. Your ad appears in its turn in the rotation, not on the screen the whole time. Drivers who pass during another advertiser's slot will not see you on that trip, though regular commuters pass often enough to catch you repeatedly.

Side by side: what each format does best

Here is the comparison I sketch for owners on a notepad. Neither column is better in general; each is better at a different job.

• Presence: static gives you the full face all the time; digital gives you a recurring place in a rotation
• Changing the message: static means producing and installing a new ad; digital can change in minutes with no production cost
• Timing: static runs the same message all day; digital can show a breakfast offer in the morning and a different one at night
• Creative: static allows extensions, 3D props and lighting effects; digital allows live content such as countdowns and scores
• Best for: static suits a brand, a location or a single long-running promise; digital suits several offers, events, deadlines and tests

Which businesses lean static

Static bulletins tend to suit businesses whose message does not change much: a medical practice, a law firm, a dealership, a homebuilder, a restaurant near an exit or any company that mainly needs drivers to remember its name and where to find it. If you want to own a stretch of highway in people's minds, the full-time presence of a bulletin is hard to beat.

Static also suits the owner who wants a showpiece. If the creative idea is a car coming out of the board or a giant product extending past the frame, only a static face can do that. If you want a static presence in more than one part of the metro over a campaign, Lamar's rotary bulletin package moves your ad between bulletin locations at stated intervals, usually every 60 to 90 days.

Which businesses lean digital

Digital suits businesses that have something new to say often. Retailers with weekly offers, restaurants with daily specials, event venues counting down to a date, companies hiring for specific roles and anyone running a limited-time promotion get more from a screen they can update. It is also the easier way to test: run two different messages for a few weeks each and see which one brings more calls or searches, something I explain in my guide on how long a billboard campaign should run.

Digital is also useful when you want to be visible only at certain hours. Because the message can change hourly, a business can show one ad during the morning commute and another in the evening. Lamar also sells digital displays programmatically, bought on impressions through ad-buying platforms, which suits advertisers who already buy online media that way.

Three misunderstandings about digital boards

The first is that sharing a screen means nobody sees you. Commuters pass the same boards day after day, and over a campaign a regular driver sees your slot many times. What sharing does change is the chance of being seen on any single trip, which is why the right comparison is presence over weeks, not over one drive.

The second is that digital always beats static because it is newer. A screen is more flexible, but flexibility only matters if you use it. An owner who puts one ad on a digital board and never changes it has bought a shared face without using the feature that made it worth choosing. If your message will not change, a static bulletin may serve you better.

The third is that a digital ad can carry more words because it is bright and sharp. It cannot. An ad on a rotating screen is still read at highway speed, and it has the extra constraint of its turn in the rotation. Short copy and strong contrast matter just as much on digital as on a printed face.

Designing for each format

Both formats are read in seconds, so the same rules apply: one idea, few words, strong contrast. Lamar's own design guidance says to aim for seven words or less, and that high-color contrast can improve outdoor recall by 38 percent. On a digital board your ad is one slide in a sequence, so it must make sense on its own in a single glance; never split a message across two slides and hope drivers see both.

On a static board, you have one design for the whole run, so it pays to get it right before production. On digital, you can refine as you go. My guide on designing a billboard people can read at highway speed covers word count, fonts, colors and the mistakes that make a board unreadable. Lamar's Dallas office offers free design services for either format.

Cost differences in plain terms

The two formats are priced differently because you are buying different things. With static, you pay for the whole face for the run, plus production and installation of the ad. With digital, you pay for a place in the rotation, and changing the message costs nothing in production. Which one is more economical depends on the board, the length of the run and how often you plan to change the ad. If you expect to run four different offers over a campaign, the absence of production cost on digital adds up; if you will run one message for the whole time, the full-time presence of static may be the better value. I explain the rest of the drivers in my guide on what a billboard costs and what sets the price.

Deciding with me

When you call, I will ask two questions before anything else: how often your message will change, and whether you need to be seen all day by the same drivers or at specific moments. The answers usually point clearly to one format, and sometimes to a combination, such as a static bulletin near your location for the brand and a digital rotation elsewhere for offers.

From there I pull the boards in the area that fit, quote each one and show you what the ad could look like. You see the proof before anything goes live, and on a digital board you can keep adjusting the message after launch.

If you are unsure, it helps to write down the next three things you would want to tell drivers. If all three are the same message, static is probably your answer. If they are a spring offer, a hiring push and a holiday event, you are describing a digital campaign. Bring that list to our first conversation and the choice usually makes itself.

Questions people ask me