Digital & LED
The 21st-century billboard: the all-digital Times Square, giant LED spectaculars, programmatic and interactive boards, and projection turning whole buildings into screens.
Part of Billboards
10 moments in this segment.
- — The all-digital Times Square. By the 2010s Times Square's last painted signs were gone, replaced by vast LED screens like the block-long Nasdaq tower.
- — Shibuya Crossing, Tokyo. Tokyo's Shibuya Crossing wraps its crowds in giant screens and sound — Asia's great advertising spectacle.
- — The new Piccadilly Lights. In 2017 Piccadilly Circus switched to a single vast ultra-HD screen, ending a century of separate signs.
- — The Piccadilly Lights, reborn. The single vast 2017 Piccadilly screen can show one ad or split into many — Europe's most famous digital board.
- — The Burj Khalifa light shows. Dubai turned the world's tallest building into the world's largest billboard with vast LED light shows.
- — McDonald's — Follow the Arches. McDonald's 2018 'Follow the Arches' used cropped pieces of its logo as directional billboards — pure icon.
- — Projection and building-sized ads. Advertisers now project campaigns onto whole buildings and landmarks, turning architecture into a screen.
- — Spotify's data billboards. Spotify's witty data-driven billboards ('Dear person who played Sorry 42 times...') became a viral tradition.
- — Netflix takes over the boards. As streaming boomed, Netflix and its rivals bought up whole cities of billboards to launch their shows.
- — The first digital billboards. At the turn of the century, LED panels began replacing paper and paint — the billboard learned to change and move.
