New Digital Signs in St. John’s

The City of Legends is entering a new era in advertising.  Or that’s what Signs of the Times signs is hoping anyway.  They have three brand new digital billboards up – and according to Doug Elton, Signs of the Times founder and Martial Arts entrepreneur, this should be “the beginning of a new way of outdoor advertising in St. John’s.”

Right now the signs, one on the side of the RDM building on Water St. and two across from the Ramada Inn on Kenmount Rd, are mostly showing dummy ads, but that’s going to change as soon as business’s start buying spots.  A “Full Spot” is 10 seconds of every minute – and comes to $2500 a month ($125 a day) at the Kenmount Rd.  location, or $3,500 for both. A “Shared Spot”  is 10 seconds of every two minutes, and is works out to $1,300 a month on Kenmount, or $1,900 for both. That might sound steep, but the signs are certainly noticeable, and Elton has a hopeful “if you build it, they will come” attitude about the project.

The signs themselves  are made by Daktronics — a leader in the industry. They’re composed of thousands of led bundles — so every point is actually a group of three lights — red, blue, and yellow. With the bundles the signs can display photo-realistic colors, and even videos (although city bylaws ban moving images as a possible traffic risk).

A few years ago Elton had to stop working to take care of his son, Douglas, who has muscular dystrophy.  When Douglas turned 18 two years ago he was able to get more care from the provincial government – giving Elton a bit of a break, but also a challenge.

“I wanted to find good work for my son, and since he’s wheelchair bound it wasn’t easy,” says Elton.  “We thought about this and that and eventually happened on digital advertising.  We thought it might be a good idea so we wrote up a proposal, did some projections, and brought it to the BDBC [Business Development Bank of Canada]. I guess they thought so too.”

Elton selected his sign locations based on city traffic data – but he also had to petition the city government to adopt some bylaws concerning digital signs – something they’d never dealt with before. It took about six months for the city to look at how signs are regulated in other communities and pass their own. In that time Elton worked with Internet professionals to design the network that connects their home office to the signs — a kind of connection he says has never been set up in the province.  But now Douglas will be able to manage the sign content from their home office – which is where the whole project started.

If this really is a revolution Elton might be looking at some competition sooner than later.  But he doesn’t seem worried.  “There’s a pretty steep learning curve – and I had to do it all myself,” he says. “We’ve created a nice little job for ourselves – now some paying customers would be nice.”

Whether this will be the end of the Magnet sign blight in St. John’s only time will tell – but we can always hope.

Contact Elton directly at 631-9869 or look for the signs shining out into the night.