Ever drive by and be impressed by the shiny billboards on the roadside? For entrepreneurs or those who participate in propaganda programs, advertising lighting is a must-try. Unlike traditional advertising on TV or radio, advertising lighting can have unexpected effects on your brand. And if billboards sound too massive to you, there are also other methods such as advertising light boxes, lamppost advertising, LED car advertising, etc. Ready to learn about advertising lighting? The following is a complete guide for you!
What is advertising lighting?
Advertising lighting is an innovative commercial strategy for establishing the image of a brand and promoting a product. The common advertisements with lights are set outdoors, becoming colorful and eye-catching icons, especially during the night at places like the roadside, the square, etc. Except for outdoor advertisements, there are also indoor ones in high-traffic areas such as shopping malls. Because it is one of the best ways to show the beautiful collocation of colors and the terse and creative slogans, it is widely used by companies and has developed many derivative types. Though there are restrictions considering the safety of pedestrians and drivers, advertising that uses lighting is still able to achieve the maximum effect to improve the reputation of a brand.
Classifications
Classified by forms
1. Billboard
Highway billboard
For those who drive often, the billboard is the most familiar type of advertising. It is usually built in a fixed and carefully chosen location where traffic is high. Using LED or fluorescent lights, it remains marked at night. Billboards draw the attention of passersby. It is relatively large and costly. Sometimes it can be the only available type of advertising lighting along the highways.
Stadium billboard
At the stadiums where excited audiences are waiting for the start of their favorite concerts or staring at the billboard for the update of football match scores, you will be sure to gain the best result to promote your products. That is the reason why famous brands line up for several seconds to play their advertisement on the billboard of a match. The stadium billboard is the incarnation of visual appeal and high technology.
2. Light box
This is what you usually see in the mall or right in front of a store. It uses light to illuminate light sheets, poster paper, and flexible materials. It can be attached to different objects and display the advertisement from multiple sides. Some light box advertisements are static, and the shop owners have to change the synthetic paper or light box canvas to change the content of their advertisements. Others are interactive, like those in the mall, which can also be used as a guide for customers to know the locations of shops.
Pole advertising
Traditional lamppost advertising may use simple materials, such as fabric. But when the night falls, passersby can’t even see it. So it is hard for it to perform the function of attracting the attention of potential customers and increasing brand awareness. Thus, people make use of super-thin light boxes to hang on lampposts. There is a circuit board, a power supply, and an automatic power-off device in the light box.
LED car advertising
Public transportation advertisements, such as vehicle and boat advertisements, are widely used in outdoor advertising. It is a high-frequency mobile advertising medium, and advertisers can convey information to the public repeatedly. This is especially true for those public transport vehicles that travel to and from the main streets of the city center. Advertisements can be placed on both sides, on the front and on the rear of the vehicle. Traditional advertising on vehicles like buses uses painted or printed paintings. Nowadays, in order to make the advertisements more eye-catching at night, some cars or trucks are equipped with LED light boxes.
Classified by light sources
1. Neon advertising lighting
For advertising, people need colorful lights. Thus, they find neon light suitable. Neon light consists of low-pressure inert gas and metal electrodes. When the light is connected to a high voltage, the gas is ionized, and electrons flow through the gas. Excited by the electrons, the gas atoms emit the light we can see. Neon light strips can not only create vivid colors but can also be bent into different shapes to form the characters and patterns people want. The production of neon lights requires large investments, and the process is complex. To ionize the gas, it needs a high power input and emits too much heat.
2. Fluorescent advertising lighting
In the 1980s, fluorescent lights were popularized, and people started to use them for light boxes. Usually combined with acrylic covers, fluorescent lights manage to provide a colorful light effect for advertising lighting. Fluorescent lights can emit light of different colors because inside a fluorescent lamp, there is mercury vapor at low pressure. Ionization makes the mercury vapor emit ultraviolet light. Fluorescent lamps are coated with fluorescent substances inside, which can receive ultraviolet energy and emit visible light. Fluorescent lights are easy to replace and cheap, but their lifespan is relatively short and they are not that efficient.
3. Solar advertising lighting
Still using LED modules for billboards or light boxes, the difference between solar lamp advertising and other types of lamp advertising is the power supply. During the daytime, a solar advertising light absorbs sunlight and stores it in the battery. At night, the LEDs manage to light up using the energy. One manifest benefit of solar lamp advertising is that it saves on power costs. Besides, it is also easy to install and maintain because there is no need for cables. As a sign of advocating green and renewable energy, it will help companies build up a more trustworthy image.
4. Laser advertising lighting
Laser advertising lighting is quite different from others not only because it uses a different light source but also because it can project the graphics, letters, and other elements of your advertisements over a long distance. It can sometimes be brighter than the others. Before setting up advertisements using laser, the tools you will need include laser controlling software and a laser projector, as well as other basic accessories. The projector can be costly, and if the lighting doesn’t work, you will have to replace the projector instead of several light bulbs.
5. LED advertising lighting
As a popular light source for advertising lighting, especially for light boxes, LEDs outperform others in terms of their advantages, such as energy savings and a long lifespan. In the 20th century, with the advent of LED technology, people found that they could use RGB LED screen displays in large-scale activities. It uses dot matrix modules, or pixel units, to display advertisements. At the same time, it combines many modern high-tech technologies, such as microelectronics, optics, and information processing. The function of LED advertising is to quickly convey commercial information that enlightens passersby and to beautify the city’s landscape.
Dynamic and static advertising
Dynamic advertising is a new way to display light ads compared with traditional static ones. While static advertisements can only show one image and you will have to reinstall if you want to change it, dynamic advertising enables you to show the content most suitable for a certain period or a specific audience. For example, if you are selling office articles, you will want to arrange for your advertisements to be presented at 7 or 8 a.m. in the morning, when people are on their way to work.
Dynamic advertising realizes the technique of instant control and makes vivid animation possible. These dynamic advertisements make use of LED lights, which provide a full spectrum and high brightness. In recent years, 3D dynamic billboards have emerged and become a big hit. Though more costly than static ones, dynamic advertisements are sure to be the future of advertising lighting.
What are the benefits of advertising lighting?
Drawing attention
People naturally tend to notice things that are bright. Besides, the advertisements always have various colors, well-designed images and texts, and some of them are quite large. And if the advertisements are dynamic, it will be even easier to attract customers’ attention. Moreover, many advertisements display for 24 hours. As long as there is traffic, there will be people who notice the advertisements.
Encouraging purchase decision
According to a US national in-car study, after viewing a billboard advertisement, 72% of drivers frequently or sometimes shop on their way home, and 68% frequently or sometimes make shopping decisions in the car. Advertising with lights is a subtle way to influence the purchase decision-making process of your potential customers. It serves the purpose well through repeated exposure and highlighting the information that customers are more likely to remember. Except for this influence on viewers’ cognitive systems, ads that make use of lights also trigger their emotional responses. Usually, the advertisements emphasize the basic physiological needs, which make people care more and make quicker purchase decisions.
More efficient than the traditional ones
Traditional mediums of advertisement include TV, radio, the internet, etc. The most significant advantage of light advertising is that you can’t change the channels or close the ads like you can when watching TV or surfing online. You almost accept the advertisements “compulsively”. In this way, advertisements achieve their goal of exposing the audience to them, no matter how long they see them or how they like them.
It can be its flaw that many advertisements with lights don’t make sound, so they cannot affect people’s auditory senses. A few dynamic LED displays set in the business districts do have sound and have proven effective in drawing people’s attention, but their locations are limited for the sake of not creating too much sound pollution.
How do I make my advertisements stand out?
No matter what kind of advertising lighting you choose, your products can only sell well with effective content. That is because people’s attention is limited, and they will filter out the information they don’t need and keep the useful ones. To make your advertisements stand out, here are several tips for you:
- Terse words: usually eight words are considered appropriate for a billboard. For other types of advertising, you should also be as terse as you can. People are just passing by, and they won’t have enough time to read a long sentence.
- Eye-catching background: you need to pay attention to the colors, patterns, pixel pitch, etc. What is the most attractive color for advertising? This is an important yet complex question. Learn about it or consult professional experts. While you are crafting an eye-catching background, be careful to keep it simple as well.
- Make your product distinctive: always keep the purpose of your advertisements in mind, which is, to prompt a purchase. Within the limit of words and arrangement, you need to make sure the final version of your ads is the best to reflect the important information, cater to the audience’s preferences, and perfectly show the features of your products.
Advantages of LED advertising lighting
LED is suitable as advertising lighting for the following reasons:
- Energy-saving
This is one of the most dominant features of LED that makes it popular. While displaying your ads for 24 hours, you won’t want to receive a power bill with a sky-high price. LEDs can reduce the energy these ads consume because of their high illuminating efficiency. It transfers most of the energy to light instead of heat.
- Low heat emission
LEDs are called cold light sources and emit little heat. This not only means that it has high efficiency but also means that it is fitting as advertising lighting, especially for outdoor ones or when the summer comes. It is possible for the light boxes to be directly exposed to strong light. The heat it emits plus the heat it receives from the sunlight will raise the temperatures in the light boxes and shorten the lifespan of the lights. Despite using dissipation equipment, choosing a better light source is even more important.
Choose Mokolight for the best advertising lighting
Mokolight provides high-end light boxes and is also able to customize other types of advertisements according to your needs. We are able to do this because we are backed by a robust team of salesmen and engineers, our own factories, and 16 years of experience in the LED industry. Don’t miss the chance and contact us today!
