A digital board along a Lagos Street

“Go digital or die” may be the new clitche as  digital shapes todays businesses. In the outdoor advertising landscape, digital drives innovation and innovation in itself drives competition. To lead in this market,   some practitioners are positioning themselves through the deployment of unique out of home displays that not only beautifies but lightens up the environment.

New Crystal Communication, an Abuja based top player in outdoor advertising has registered itself among sectoral players that have achieved a unique rating in brand building media platforms due largely to its  innovative and creative efforts that is shaping the character, form colour and complexion of the highly priced and veritable OOH media advertising mix.

Though a third generation shop with locations pan Nigeria, the shop  has since its inception over a decade ago played pivotal role in products revolution turn-around of the out-of-home media. Hitherto reputed for its pace-setting innovative products like segmented scrolling billboard, cross-way billboards (Gantries) backlit, unipoles, ultra  waves, hexa signs, the high-rising profile agency  has again launched a new digital LED super structure tagged “Medallion billboard”.

The new billboard designs, which have been erected in major city centres such as Lagos, Abuja, Port-Harcourt and Onitsha are said to be very simple to operate but with sophisticated technology yet unparalled in this clime. This disclosure was made recently by the General Manager of the outdoor shop in Lagos, Mr. Ben Ilo who said the new product has unique selling points that will further advance the course of brand equity growth while also lessening undue burdens that are normally associated with billboard postings and monitoring.

His words: “We have brought into the market a new billboard design that makes the business of outdoor advertising operations more simpler, less cumbersome but more sophisticated with the type of the new software we are deploring”.  Specifically, he said with the new LED billboard design, “Clients and billboard operators now have simpler and better ways to do business together for high profitability”.

“The new billboard has four advert slots per side”.  Each of the slots scrolls for three hundred and fifty (350) times per day,” he said, while also revealing that for a multiple brand owners, each slot has the flexibility to accommodate more than two brands’ advert in a slot to be scrolled for the day.

Not only that, Ilo disclosed that the board can be operated right from the practitioners’ office without the usual hassle of going to the field to change or post new materials. Similarly, he said clients can also monitor the boards right from the comfort of their offices by merely pressing buttons as it is computer based.
Asked what informed this new billboard technology, Ilo said: “Outdoor industry has been conventional over the years, but for us at New Crystal Communication we have to move with the trend. “All over the world, outdoor has evolved radically from what it is used to be to the new age of digital.

“We have to move forward with the trends and that is why we have decided to go full circle on digital billboards.” He stated that so far, about ten of such billboards have been deployed in various locations across the country.

Speaking in a similar vein, the Managing Director of the company, Mr.  Dozie Mbanefo said the introduction of the new billboard design “is to give prestige advertising to clients’ brands as well as optimise brand exposure at a scale ever unimagined. We are into this new initiative to give prestige advertising to clients’ business”. 

On the spate of innovations in the out-of-home sector,  Mbanefo, an engineer said “the development is good for the industry as well as for the users of the medium who are regularly yearning for added-value. “Competition is good, especially if it is driven by innovation, it brings out the best in every individual,” he emphasised.

With its new innovativeness, New Crystal Communication has become the toast of major advertisers in the country.  It has further expanded outdoor advertising frontier to other West African countries. Its ever-rising profile has been attributed to management efficiency and a focused commitment to its vision and mission.  The agency prides itself on six great pillars including honesty, credibility, hard work, transparency, professionalism and value-for money.