Watchfire Digital Outdoor (watchfiredigitaloutdoor.com), the digital billboard division of Time-O-Matic Inc., announced it has received orders for two 19mm 10'6" by 36' digital outdoor billboards from Advertising Advantage of Jamestown, NY.  The new digital billboards will replace two tri-message boards in Erie, Pa.

According to Michael McVinney, director of leasing and acquisition at Advertising Advantage, the billboards will be placed back to back, and will be located in the busiest traffic area in Erie, on Upper Peach Street and Hershey Road, next to Wegmans grocery store.

The two billboards will be the first digital boards for Advertising Advantage.  Although installation is approximately six weeks out, immediate advertising inventory is already nearly 100 percent sold.  "The outdoor advertising market is very competitive in the Jamestown and Erie markets, and this new digital advertising medium is attractive to advertisers," said McVinney. 

Advertisers already committed to the digital billboards include car dealers, a jeweler, phone companies, physicians and colleges.  According to McVinney, advertisers like digital billboards because the artwork can be updated daily with no production cost, except for the digital artwork files.  Since digital signs can be updated remotely in minutes using software and a high-speed Internet connection, advertisers have the ability to run specific messages coinciding with the time of day or special events.

Advertising Advantage selected billboards from Watchfire Digital Outdoor because of their rugged design, outstanding image quality and fast manufacturing turn-around.  "The product quality was unmatchable in the industry," said McVinney, noting that Erie gets a significant amount of snow and rain so it was important to buy from a manufacturer capable of dealing with extreme weather.

Watchfire Digital Outdoor produces the industry's only 19mm pixel pitch billboard, which is capable of producing 281 trillion colors, the most in the industry.  All Watchfire billboards feature 140-degree viewing angle LEDs.  In addition, Watchfire provides a web cam for real-time monitoring of billboards, automatic diagnostic monitoring via email and log files for proof of performance.

Watchfire digital billboards have industry-leading uptime.  A recent audit of 334 Watchfire digital signs revealed that the signs had an average uptime of more than 99.9 percent.  The product's performance is largely attributable to the unique silicone gel encapsulation that Watchfire utilizes.

Watchfire Digital Outdoor produced a documentary of a billboard installation as a guide for outdoor advertisers who want to learn more about digital billboards.  A free DVD of the documentary is available at http://www.watchfiredigitaloutdoor.com/freeDVD3 or by calling 866-949-9282.

About Watchfire Digital Outdoor

Watchfire Digital Outdoor engineers and manufactures the best looking and most durable digital billboards available anywhere. It is the digital billboard division of Watchfire by Time-O-Matic, which has been manufacturing outdoor electric signs for more than 75 years, has been manufacturing LED signs for 10 years, and has more than 12,000 outdoor LED signs in daily operation throughout North America. Watchfire Digital Outdoor is located in Danville, Ill. with marketing and sales operations in Indianapolis. For more information, go to http://www.watchfiredigitaloutdoor.com.

For information contact:

Mara Conklin, 847.816.9411
mconklin@teamclarus.com

Linda Muskin, 847.432.7300
lmuskin@teamclarus.com