To better understand what the future of out-of-home media holds, let us take a look at where it began.

Out-of-Home Advertising: The Timeline

• 1450: Gutenberg invented movable type writing, which brought printed materials to the masses.
• 1796: The illustrated poster was born with the perfection of the lithographic process, which used a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a completely smooth surface rather than wood.
• 1835: Jared Bell created the first outdoor poster in New York advertising the circus.
• 1850: Exterior Ads could be found on street railways
• 1867: Earliest recordings of leased boards
• 1870: Nearly 300 posting companies existed
• 1872: International Bill Posters’ Association of North America
• 1891: Associated Bill Posters’ Associated of the US and Canada
  • Purpose:
    • To promote a greater understanding of the poster medium.
    • To provide an expanded nationwide organization for coordinating the services offered by member companies.
    • To continue to address the ethical concerns of early industry leaders.
• 1900: A national billboard structure was created in American leading to a boom in national billboard companies.
  • Palmolive, Kellogg and Coca-Cola were among of the first advertisers to mass-produce billboards for national campaigns
• 1913: An educational committee was formed to encourage the industry to donate public service advertising, which is still used today.
• 1915:  National Outdoor Advertising Bureau was formed to aid advertising agencies.
• 1925: Poster Advertising Association and the Painted Outdoor Advertising Association combined to become Outdoor Advertising Association of America (OAAA)
• 1925: The Fulton Group and the Cusack Co. combined to become the General Outdoor Advertising Company (GOA) – marking the first major merger of outdoor advertising companies.
• 1934:  Traffic Audit Bureau (TAB) was established to provide data on outdoor audiences
• 1962: The first bus stop shelter was invented; shelters were built at no cost to the city and relied solely on ad revenue for upkeep.
• 1965: Highway Beautification Act was signed.  This act controlled billboards on Interstate and federal-aid primary highways by limiting billboards to commercial and industrial areas, and required states to set size, lighting and spacing standards
• 1970’s: Vinyl replaced painted billboards
• 1975: OAAA billboard effectiveness was put to the test.
  • The concept featured Shirley Cochran, the newly crowned Miss America, on billboards. Her name recognition soared 940% after the campaign.
• 1990’s: Digital technology was introduced to the industry (For more information, check out our blog on digital media)
• 2002:  Arbitron and Nielsen began testing the achievability of developing outdoor ratings.
• 2005: First Digital Networks were installed
• 2010: A majority of outdoor structures were converted from 30-sheet posters to ecoflex posters in an effort to become more environmentally sound (as well as cut down on installation time).
• Beyond: How do you see outdoor advertising changing in the years to come?

-Jennifer Hoffmannbeck, Media Buyer, avid doodler and the newest fan of Monster.