GERMANY’s RoadAds is taking orders for e-ink displays that are
mounted on the back of trailers.
Unlike the ink-on-tarp adverts on the more than 10 000 trucks that
use the N3 each day, the e-ink displays automatically change content depending
on which province or country the truck is driving through.
RoadAds has created the electronic display boards in partnership
with Mercedes and the electronic signage company Visionect.
Visionect said the Truckside ads generate 2,5 times more attention
than static billboards, with an advertisement on a truck or trailer resulting in
between 30 000 to 70 000 views a day in Germany.
Each board uses four 32-inch e-ink screens, joined edge-to-edge to
create a 0,9 x 1,5-metre display. Like the words on an e-reader’s screen, the
e-ink display can be seen in bright sunlight, and they use the truck’s battery
when they are changing display content.
Because they don’t emit light, they won’t dazzle drivers who are
following behind at night. Each unit comes with a GPS, Internet connectivity and
Wi-Fi so that ads can download and display only local advertising from RoadAds’
server.
If updating via 4G, the billboard connects to a server to receive
new content, with a subset of all possible advertisements always pre-buffered on
the billboard itself in case of mobile network unavailability. When connecting
over Wi-Fi, the billboard is controlled locally on any mobile device.
Apart from adverts, the trucks can display information on the road
or even relay images of the traffic in front of the truck to the drivers who are
following in the rear, as Panasonic is doing now with a similar pilot in Russia.
RoadAds will be testing the screens in November and said it expects
the first 1 000 electronic paper truck displays will be sold in June next year.
