Lamar Advertising Company:
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The Lamar Advertising Company (NASDAQ: LAMR), based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, is a provider of billboards, transit advertising, and highway logo signs. Founded in 1902, it has been the largest outdoor advertising company in the United States and Puerto Rico.
[edit] History
A simple flip of a coin in Pensacola, FL landed Charles W. Lamar Sr. the opportunity of a lifetime. In 1908, when Mr. Lamar and J.M. Coe decided to dissolve their three-year partnership, a coin toss was used to divide their assets: the Pensacola Opera House and the Pensacola Advertising Company, the small poster company created to promote the Opera House. Mr. Lamar lost the toss and was left with the less-lucrative poster company, which he renamed Lamar Outdoor Advertising Company.
Over the course of the next century, Mr. Lamar and his descendants built Lamar Advertising from a small sign company on the Gulf Coast into one of the largest providers of out-of-home advertising in the nation. Through generations of commitment, integrity and innovation, Lamar has changed the nation's landscape while still maintaining the character of a family business.
Current chief executive officer Kevin Reilly Jr., the great-grandson of Charles Lamar Sr., was appointed to succeed his father in 1989. Since then, Lamar - now based in Baton Rouge -- has entered into a new phase of growth and diversification, including its expansion into the interstate logo business and its recent introduction of digital billboards, which allow advertisers to update their messages instantly.
In 1996, Lamar made its first public offering of stock, which began trading on the NASDAQ exchange under the symbol LAMR. In 1999, after completing its $1.6 billion acquisition of Chancellor Media, Lamar became the nation's largest outdoor advertising company, measured by number of displays.
In 2005, Lamar generated revenues of more than $1 billion for the first time. Its 3,300 dedicated employees are spread among more than 150 offices in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico -- including a 25-person office in Pensacola, where it all began more than 100 years ago.
[edit] Products
Bulletins- Bulletins are the largest standard-sized form of outdoor advertising located on highly visible locations such as expressways and primary arteries. Bulletins are commonly used as directionals to reach those traveling long distances and direct them to the nearest locations for restaurants, lodging, fuel, etc.
Tri-Visions- A Tri-vision is an advertising display (usually bulletin size) with which, with the use of a triangular louver design, copy for three different advertisers can be displayed in a pre-determined sequence of moving panels.
Posters- Posters are smaller 12'x24' boards that are usually purchased in a "poster showing"; a predetermined number of posters within a given market. Posters are used to blanket a market with a message and because of their smaller size, aren't limited to highways and interstates but are usually found where customers live, work, and play.
Junior Posters- Junior Posters, usually 6'x12', are used to get very specific messages out to hard to reach audiences.
Digital Displays- Digital Displays are computer controlled electronic billboards. They transmit light through Light-emitting diode (LED) Display technology. The board holds a message for up to 10 seconds before the next message is displayed. Digital Displays are very flexible: capable of being changed weekly, daily, or even hourly with a simple email. These boards are best used to advertise special promotions, one-day sales, breaking news, price points, etc.
Digital Posters- Digital Posters are smaller digital displays that are either 10'x21' or 10'x36'.
Wallscapes- Wallscapes are large and elaborate, non-standard structures custom-designed to gain maximum attention through eye-catching special effects such as: neon tubing, fiber optics, giant back lit panels, hydraulic movement, video screens, message centers, three-dimensional sculpted features, incandescent lamps, strobes, giant transparencies and computer graphics.
Buses- Buses can be wrapped in a variety of ways to suit advertisers' needs and act as "mobile billboards" traveling throughout the busiest portions of metro areas.
Shelters- Transit shelters are distributed along busy bus routes throughout a market and feature displays that contain advertisers' messages. All displays are back lit for night viewing of a message.
Benches- Benches are located at bus stops within metropolitan areas at high traffic intersections. Placed at eye-level, the ads that cover the back of them are visible to pedestrian and vehicular traffic.
Station Domination- Station Domination occurs when an entire train and train station is covered with an advertiser's message.
[edit] See also
Rival outdoor advertising agencies
[edit] External links
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