Business perceptions of the role of billboards in the U.S. economy

ABSTRACT

Despite the longstanding regulatory debate over outdoor advertising, only a limited number of academic studies have explored why firms use the medium. To give insight on several issues pertaining to the outdoor advertising controversy, this article presents findings from a national survey of billboard users and nonusers. Users believe that billboards have unique advantages that are not offered by other media. Thus, they have more positive views than nonusers of billboards' ability to communicate information at an affordable cost, attract new customers, and reach a targeted local area. Users also believe that billboards serve a different function than on-premise signs, and that other media are poor substitutes for billboards. Unlike nonusers, a majority of billboard users indicate that their company would lose sales if billboards were banned. Small businesses, travel-related businesses, and heavier users of billboards predict a sales decline of approximately 20 percent on average.