News

Third-generation sign company embraces digital billboards

May 9, 2013

With decades of experience under its belt, Key-Ads Inc. of Dayton, Ohio, knows a thing or two about billboards. The third-generation, family-owned company has more than 700 of them in 21 counties along Ohio's western border, or about one-third of the market along with Lamar Advertising Co. and CBS Outdoor, according to a story in The Dayton Daily News.

Now the firm, owned and operated by Nicholas L. Keyes and his three sons, has gone digital. It's already erected several digital billboards in the market, with more in the works, including a two-sided digital sign on the roof of the company's headquarters.

As the story reports, digital billboards are among the fastest growing segments of the out-of-home advertising industry, with outdoor advertising posting revenues of $6.7 billion in 2012, an increase of 4.2 percent compared to the previous year, according to the Outdoor Advertising Association of America.

Noting that digital signage has uses beyond advertising, Nicholas Keyes said the company will make the signs available for alerts, emergency notifications and other public uses. Key-Ads billboards are directly connected to the AMBER Alert system, for example.

"We are a family business and will continue to be," he told the Daily News. "We want the communities to be as proud of the digital signs as we are."

Learn more about digital billboards.