Design depends on the image a business wants to project. Banks and similar institutions often require the functionality of EMCs but want them to look like a component of an overall themed design. Photos Courtesy DeNyse Signs

In the past one-color EMCs have been the best sellers, but according to Achten, that’s changing now that full-color units are more widely available. “It’s a nice element to add. It makes a cool sign even cooler.” Courtesy Advantage Sign Company

A three-sided Daktronics Galaxy Pro outside Denver’s Pepsi Center displays text messages and full color video clips and is visible to daytime traffic coming from three directions.

This theater sign was designed to incorporate a double-sided Grandwell EMC with a number of other elements including neon and a traditional changeable copy board. “We take a value engineered approach to componentry that makes it look sophisticated but is relatively inexpensive,” DeNyse says. Courtesy DeNyse Signs

ASI Sign Systems of Denver built the monument sign and installed the EMC for the new Golden High School. Daktronics employees made the final communication connections and provided the school with training.

How the EMC is configured as part of a larger sign depends on each customer’s needs. O’Meara Ford, for example, wanted the Ford oval and the O’Meara name to be a static element, leaving the display board open to other messages and graphics.

Considering limitations imposed on square footage by some sign codes, some users opt to devote more or all of the allowable sign face area to the EMC rather than spending it on the static portion, knowing their name and logo can be in every message if they want.

Sometime in the late 1970s or early 1980s, I first became aware of pedestrian-level scrolling electronic message centers (EMCs) as they started showing up in places like neighborhood bars and fast food restaurants. They seemed like a cross between the marching headlines on the New York Times Building and the scoreboards used in thousands of small town ballparks. I found myself staring at them—sometimes for several minutes—before realizing I’d been captivated.

As many an advertising mogul knows, the benefits of such attention-grabbing capabilities are legion.

For some time following their primetime debut, EMCs transitioned between analog and digital technologies. A few of the earlier units (available until about 10 years ago) used a matrix of incandescent lights to form numbers, letters and simple graphics. Some used black and white mechanically operated squares for their “pixels”. Sometimes electronic versions were grouped with three-sided billboard displays in highway studies because they “instantly” changed from one display to another. Obviously digital technologies have prevailed in the changeable sign market, and have led the progression into a much more complex market, arguably including “dynamic digital” devices that display human-scale signs and other messages on LCD and plasma screens—as well as the more familiar LED boards.

For the most part, the place of demarcation between what are known as electronic message centers and what are known as dynamic digital signs (DDS) lies for the most part at the door: outdoors is the realm of EMCs that make use of high brightness LEDs for daylight visibility; indoors is the realm of DDSs for high definition resolution.

But lately it’s more like a shifting curtain than an open or shut door because while LEDs have always been available for indoor use, a more robust generation of bigger and brighter modular LCDs and plasma screens are becoming available for outdoor use. And the outdoor out-of-home advertising industry adds another dimension to the diverse applications for electronic signage with a growing installed base of full-color and sometimes video-capable digital highway billboards as well as numerous pedestrian level “dynamic digital” signs.

What it comes down to is that a large number of “electronic” choices exist that generally work remarkably well when applied to signage. It’s just that some work better than others for specific purposes—and are more cost effective for specific purposes.

And then there are the matters of sign codes and city ordinances, and how much these things cost…

INTELLIGENCE AT THE FRONT

Reaping the advertising and promotional benefits of EMCs is one thing. Understanding how they differ and what restrictions apply to a client’s wishes is another thing—one that requires a bit of expertise. Often, if not typically, potential EMC buyers have seen a display and like how it grabbed their attention. They usually know little else about them, which leaves sign companies at the front lines of intelligence when it comes to educating end users about EMCs.

“They’re looking to us to tell them not only what size is allowed but they are also looking for us to tell them what will be effective,” says Galen Achten of Englewood, Colo.-based Advantage Sign Company. “If the zoning only allows so many square feet of signage, we have to incorporate the EMC into that. It’s part of the local code and our job is to know or find out. Clients want those questions answered.”

Tim Hays of Denver’s Gardner Signs agrees. “Typically it’s an education process, bringing a client to the point of making a value-based decision about what is the correct unit for them.” Hays points out that every customer has a unique situation and all the variables need to be taken into account: color, resolution, viewing distances and viewing angles. “Then we educate them and give them a few choices of what will give them the best bang for the buck.”

Speaking of bang for the buck, the price tags on EMCs are not for the faint-of-checkbook.

“The most challenging misconception is the affordability,” says Allen DeNyse of Atlanta-based DeNyse Signs. “Clients see them and say, ‘I want one,’ and I say, ‘You know you’re talking about $40,000,’ and I hear something drop on the floor.” DeNyse says sometimes a client will ask for something they don’t need, and that requires some sales coaching. But he believes the more critical situation is working with a client who doesn’t have the budget to do the job properly. “That’s when you don’t just sell them an undersized board that you can’t see when you drive by on the interstate.” DeNyse advises telling a client in that situation to either come back in a year, “Or more importantly, you could say, ‘Why don’t you lease this?’ The lease option will cost a little more long term, but with a lot of people, it’s a matter of cash flow.”

Achten has similar budget stories. “We figure out what size they can have at their location. We give them prices…and it chokes them to death,” he says. “So then we have to go, ‘Well look, it’s like a salesman standing out there 24/7,’ and get them thinking along the lines of, ‘Can you spend dollars any better doing other kinds of advertising?’ We don’t think so.”

“The critical part is knowing what will work; what will read and asking them, ‘What do you want the board to do?’” says DeNyse. “People think they know what they want and you just need to help them understand what will work best.”

INSTALLATIONS, ETC.

Once a proper model is chosen, approved and a permit is issued, EMC installation is a fairly straightforward process. If it is going into a monument or pole sign, the most important thing a sign fabricator must do is build a good structure and make any rough opening the correct size. “We are a sign company,” says Hays. “It’s the same work, just what you’re hanging on the steel that might be different.”

Achten points out that the license requirements for his sign company are different in all the cities in the region where the company works. Some require an electric sign license. Some require an overall sign manufacturer license. “Our nemesis in the sign business is all the suburbs have different license requirements,” he warns. A licensed electrician always makes the final connection to the primary power and hard-wired data feeds are usually done with Cat-5 or fiber optic cable. If it is a long way across a parking lot to the sign, often users choose a wireless data feed, but a wireless connection requires an open line of sight between the data transmitter in the building and the sign.

EMC manufacturers such as YESCO are often, but not always, involved in installations and client training. Daktronics, for example, provides periodic two-day technical training sessions at their headquarters for sign companies that are new to selling electronic signs. The company also provides sign companies with an on-site field engineer during installation to ensure all systems work properly, as well as post installation end user training.

Achten says the support he gets from his Watchfire rep is invaluable to the sales process. The rep arrives in a van with a unit that pops up out of the roof, for a client demo. “It’s a good selling feature,” says Achten. “He answers the client’s technical questions and other details.” After the installation, there’s a training CD that goes to the customer and if there are other operational questions, the client works with Watchfire. If problems occur with the sign itself, he’s called in for service. “They’ve gotten a lot easier to work with. There used to be all these little light bulbs and if some go out it can be a real pain. Now they are more user friendly.”

Furney Pretty, DeNyse’s rep from Grandwell Industries, says unless the project requires it, sign companies design around standard-sized modules. Depending on the complexity of the project, Grandwell provides a complete unit and leaves most of the installation process up to the sign company. Afterward, they provide the end user with proprietary software to operate the unit. Pretty says the sign company usually provides training, but if needed they sometimes fill in for them.

DeNyse also says he relies on the manufacturer’s service and support. If they are called out on repair for example, the factory sends them every conceivable component and tells them to use what’s needed and ship the other parts back. It’s a business model that develops good relationships between sign companies, clients and vendors.

CONTROVERSIES & REGULATIONS

A long litany of litigation along with an equally long litany of revised local sign codes have accompanied EMCs as they have made greater inroads into traditional on-premise signs and out-of-home advertising territories.

Oft-cited objections from municipal governments (and citizen groups) generally revolve around two major issues: aesthetics and traffic safety. Those objections have resulted in restrictions that vary from outright bans in some areas to controls on how frequently EMCs can change to the meaning of the term “flashing sign”. As a result, ordinances and regulations, while challenged in numerous high-profile court cases, still must be followed unless the laws are changed. Even in the face of many extensive studies suggesting no connection between safety and electronic signage, many of the restrictions have still been upheld in courts. County of Los Angeles California Superior Court Judge Terry Green, for example, had at press time overturned a settlement that allowed CBS and Clear Channel to convert static billboards to digital displays in the highly publicized Los Angeles case. In a similar case, the U.S. Court of Appeals upheld a ruling by a District Court of New Hampshire in favor of the town of Concord’s constitutional right to place a ban on EMCs on aesthetic and safety grounds.

The lesson to learn from these and similar cases is to be familiar with the local ordinances in order to advise clients properly. That said, a relaxing of the hard line rules in many areas is evident and sign companies can help clients make informed choices. “Clients lean on us pretty heavily to do the investigative work and tell them what they can have,” says Hays. “Sometimes we work within existing codes and systems to obtain variances. Even though more are coming around, many current codes were not written with EMCs in mind, so they never addressed it.”

DeNyse says he’s learned the value of prudence in this area and advises any sign company to “exercise proper due diligence. Make sure you check the regulations before you get a client excited about something like full video capability when there’s a limitation in the municipality,” says DeNyse. “Mis-selling is a pitfall you want to avoid. It can put a lot of egg on your face if you suggest or show something they can’t have.”

DeNyse, Hays and Achten all agree that municipalities are starting to loosen up rather than tighten up on the regulations. “It’s a change we’re happy to see,” DeNyse says. “People are starting to realize they need to help their local economies survive.”