(Actual) Digital Billboards

Yesterday we talked about some great Outdoor campaigns we've seen recently. Today, we're stuck still stuck thinking about billboards, but in a completely different way thanks to a patent registered by the folks over at Google. Don't be fooled by the patent's horribly boring title: "Claiming Real Estate in Panoramic or 3D Mapping Environments for Advertising." It's actually really cool, we promise.

The idea is to offer advertisers a way to advertise within Google's popular "Street View" map function in places where real-life outdoor ads actually exist (i.e. posters, signs, billboards,etc.). That way if, say, a movie poster plastered to a building wall in "Street View" is outdated, another advertiser can take the digital space with more relevant & timely ad. It will reportedly also allow advertisers to place ads (on an auction basis, per the Google way) on unclaimed properties within "Street View."

According to the patent, almost anything within the geographic display can be bid on. This obviously leaves a lot of questions to be worked out (who actually owns the digital image of a location? Can a Wendy's decide to advertise on a McDonald's virtual storefront?).

We'll see what comes of the idea, but it's yet another example of the media convergence we see around us everyday. Even Outdoor advertising is becoming digital advertising (take a peek at the buying interface. Looks a lot like AdWords/DoubleClick, eh?)