A successful launch of electronic billboards is underway in Durban, South Africa; following a triumphant crowdfunded campaign held on the Steemit.com blockchain social media platform, just over a week ago.
The campaign known as @steemdrive, set a precedent for the first billboard to be paid for entirely by the Steem blockchain, with no payment or contribution required by the participants other than casting a vote.
Phase one is already in effect, with two electronic billboards active since Friday the 29th of July 2016!
The crowdfunds were sufficient to secure over two months of billboard flight time on a “Spectacular” sized 20m x 5m billboard (details to follow), and two smaller electronic billboards supplied free of charge as a value add by The Outdoor Network billboard advertising agency. More details to follow on the agency in the proof of flight Steemit post to follow after the printing and flighting of the primary billboard.
The electronic billboards were able to be activated sooner due to their electronic, instant update ability.
Audiovisual Presentation of Electronic Billboard Campaign
Electronic LED Billboard – Value Centre, 45 Electron Road, KZN, Durban, South Africa
Size: 3m x 6m (Pixel size 192 x 384) Traffic Count: Approx. 60 000 vehicles per day, this figure excludes pedestrian exposure (this traffic data is several years old and therefore not current, the values should now be much higher, new data coming later in 2016) Advert Length: 16 Seconds on rotational basis, appearing once every 5 minutes or sooner. Situated at an exceptionally busy traffic intersection, the Value Centre billboard faces traffic travelling from Durban CBD towards the N2 as well as the M19 highways and is surrounded by a multitude of shopping centres, automotive dealerships and giant national wholesaler, Makro (a Walmart & Massmart owned store). Size: 2m x 4m (Pixel size 96 x 160) Traffic Count: Approx. 50 000 vehicles per day, this figure excludes pedestrian exposure (this traffic data is several years old and therefore not current, the values should now be much higher, new data coming later in 2016) Advert Length: 16 Seconds on rotational basis, appearing once every 5 minutes or sooner. Sandile Thusi (Formerly Argyle Road) is one of the main commuter routes out of Durban city, with a constant traffic flow throughout the day. The billboard is situated in the Mr Price Home décor center, adding extra visibility of advertising to the clientele of this popular South African mass retail chain-store in addition to the high street traffic and pedestrian traffic flow. Thank you and well done on the successful @steemdrive crowdfund campaign. More updates and locations to follow. @cryproiskey is busy preparing the next billboard site for funding ... should anyone wish to join our initiative and become a liaison in your country, please comment on this post. Sincerely, Credits: “I am Value” concept by @cryptocreative Billboard artwork compilation - Lucien Mathurine (The Outdoor Network) My signature, made for me thoughtfully by @ben99 Terms and Conditions: All artwork has been approved by Ned Scott of Steemit, Inc. Further approval received to amend domain on artwork to steemit.life which will point to a referral link for campaign tracking. Previous Campaign Links: https://soundcloud.com/beyond-bitcoin-hangouts/166e166-2016-07-29-beyond-bitcoin-peerplays-steemdrives-billboards-blockpay-grc-hangouts (Ricardo Goncalves' @steemdrive interview with Beyondbitcoin Hangouts, FFWD to around 30 minutes)
Video Soundtrack: Emotional Uplifting Royalty Free Music Download Memoirs
Steem Dollar payout funds raised from this Steemit post shall be allocated to extend and enhance the Durban billboard campaign in accordance with the campaign terms and conditions, or any other site or @steemdrive public project where funds may be required.
https://steemit.com/money/@steemdrive/sa-s-city-of-durban-to-be-engulfed-by-steem-the-world-to-follow
This is that we hope that it happens with his advertisement.
Fantastic...bring the world in!
👍nice post and sharing @steemdrive
Success always...
Great success!!!
Great job advertising for our community and getting the word out for Steemit! Hopefully this creates a lot of new users!
Thank you for your support! Looking forward to the new users!
That is awesome!
Sure is!
Amazing to see this! good job on getting this started. Steemit is really going places. I see your article is on TheDailySteemit.com always good to see! ;)
Thank you for the plug on thedailysteemit! We are honoured, I love the newsy look. Checck your link above, there in a typo in the url. The one I wrote in here is fine.
haha great catch! :) Fixed.
Yes, we are working on the format . Trying to do hand-curated slash real-time with the hope of having even Steemit authors contribute to it. I'll keep my eyes peeled to what you are doing.
Thank you and I will keep up with your news page!! Very excited to read regularly.
That's AWESOME! I love the idea; crowd funding to promote a crowd powered website and currency ... makes PERFECT SENSE.
I'm in Thailand. If you have ideas or advice about how to get more involved, I'll have a lot more free time from October (scarily I just handed in my resignation).
Hi @brett.tesol, thanks for your support. We would love to have you onboard as Thailand liaison, you just need to contact me in steemit.chat , my name there is thecryptodrive. I will add you to our team private channel where we can take it further. As liaison you will organise quotes and details of billboards in your area and assist with writing about your country for the campaign.
Thanks for the extra information. I'm a bit new to all this, but will head off to find you on chat now .......
Hey @minion, I love your animated gifs, makes me feel top of the world. Thanks also for fixing the contrast on my thumbnail image!
Np man!
very cool well done :)
Hey Margate buddy!!! Big up for Durban and South Africa!!
The best part about Steemit is that people can earn and learn as they go, and don't need much experience with crypto.
That's the great part, we have moms, dads, grannies, grandpas etc all joining and posting...I love it!
that's really nice it seems that steemit is getting much popular everyday
:)
According to the charts on https://steemle.com/charts.php , almost 1500 new accounts created daily as of today!
Congrats! That's really cool
@steemdrive only does cool! :)
Yeah!!! that's what i am talking about..WORLD DOMINATION!!! ....Next stop New Zealand!
Buddy, can't wait to see what billboard campaign you have cooked for us!!! Very exciting!!
🚀🚀🚀👍👍👍
I did not expect that, when I clicked the post.
lol, what did you expect? :)
Just the billboards actually. I thought it was a weird thing to randomly crowdfund.
@mistowed yes there are many great initiatives on Steemit, some don't get noticed which is really sad.
I cried, really... this putted me on tears, I love how strong community we are becoming.
Sorry @wisehammer, my bad for using emotional, triumphant background music to the video. :) Every time I watch it and look over the campaign history, it moves me as well. History is being made and I could never have been more fulfilled to be surrounded with so much positivity!
Well, I loved it really much what you did for the community, following you, right, now.
I was thinking doing the same in my town. Hopefully once I get some SD going I will set the wheels rolling.
Great Job @steemdrive. Keep it up
Hello @kyriacos the @steemdrive campaign welcomes people from all over the world to join our campaign and promote their billboards under our banner, that way we ensure that the community gets what they vote for, we aim to be transparent and accountable. We also join together and help promote your campaign.
If you would like to signup for your region please join steemit.chat and send me a private message, my handle is thecryptodrive.
That is great! Did you really have to ask permission from Ned and Dan on the art? Is that decentralized? lol
Yes I did, turns out Steem is decentralized and Open Source, the name Steemit.com belongs to Steemit Inc. See below Ned's comments:
great post and I'm sure everyone appreciates you spreading the word out for Steemit!! :)) Well done! x
💯 % Thank you!!!!
Great concept!
Soon Steemit will be dominated by african Whales. ;)
Haha, that's awesome! We also have seals in Cape Town, I'm surprised a seal isn't a category on Steemit! :)
Holy crap, it happened!!! I wonder, what format is the media presented on? There is an electronic billboard near me and steemit virtually no presence in scotland. I could find out costs if I could get hold of the media file?
Hey @meesterboom, you can join our team as Scotland liaison if you like, we all will support your campaign for your area. Read about becoming a liaison and rewards offered on our first post https://steemit.com/money/@steemdrive/sa-s-city-of-durban-to-be-engulfed-by-steem-the-world-to-follow
Hello would you like to check out my campaign at O'Hare airport? https://steemit.com/advertising/@theprophet0/the-road-to-bring-the-first-steemit-billboard-to-o-hare-international-airport-i-need-your-help-in-creating-a-design-you-will-be
Thanks @theprophet0 we had a nice discussion in steemit.chat and we are happy to announce that you are on board with us as Chicago liaison, our other liaison for Chicago is no longer contactable. I will contact Lamar Advertising as per the email you gave me and establish contact and pricing. We can then relaunch your campaign with the steemdrive team and make it work.
my steemchat is theprophet0
Fantastic job!
Thank you..."keep rollin' rollin' rollin' " :)
This is history making guys. Steemit is making future. Let's together make it BIG, because the probleme we are solving is BIG.
I love the way you think man! Thanks for being a part of this!
Thanks for spreading the steemit word!
We do our best, thank you!
thank you, together we can bring steemit to the masses. I would be happy to handle the Dutch division.
Hi Bergy, join steemit.chat and contact me (thecryptodrive) so we can make arrangements. Nice to hear from you.
Wow that's amazing!
The Steemit community is amazing!
wow we should do a similar one in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. let's move this forward.
Contact me (thecryptodrive) in steemit.chat if you would like to join as liaison for your region.
Wonderful !!!
I want in...
Hello @sharonkelly, which region are you in? Contact me (thecryptodrive) in steemit.chat so we can take it forward.
awesome!!!!....up to something special.
Thank for posting those campaign links so people can know the history behind it on how it got made.
Thanks for taking the time to follow our history!
Awesome advertising!
Preach it sister!! :)
Great to see this put in motion. Good luck with the rest of the campaigns! What are you looking for your liasons to do? Sourcing of the advertisement options and contacting them?
Yes exactly, the liaisons make contact with advertising companies in their country and help us write a post specific to the region, appropriate translations etc. 20% of the SBD paid out goes to the liaison and the rest for their billboard campaign. It will be easier to do it as part of a team and one trusted party that the community knows will get the job done.
Unfortunately there may be copycats who will take the funds and not erect any billboards.
WoHOO great job, congrats to all that had the faith and upvoted these guys!!
Thank you for being our fan @moviefan !!
Good information @steemdrive
Good to have your support @faraz! Thank you.
Great work @steemdrive. You're a pioneer!
:) I'm honoured to be blessed enough to be a part of such a great community!
Here kitty kitty kitty! :)
Following your blog @steemdrive
Fantastic to hear! Because our campaign deals with large promotions, you may only see new content once a week, but we will improve on that with time and as more countries come online.
Good job! The advertising campaign must be effective. How do you plan to assess the impact of advertising? Who was the target audience for this project? Is there any sense that there is no rental of advertising space? But we could create self-advertising. To create our own advertising media. I'm considering advertising company in Russia. The Russian segment of users increases. This means that people in our country can appreciate the idea of STEEMIT.
Thank you so much! We have been given the authority to use our own registered domain steemit.life which points to steemit.com via a referral url still being tested by Steemit. If anyone joins via this domain we will know it is a direct result of the @steemdrive efforts.
I can't say for sure that the campaign will bring a lot of direct signups, it is more about creating brand awareness, as I have mentioned previously. Generally consumers need to have seen the brand a few times before they decide to engage with it, so the next time they see an internet banner they are more likely to click on it and signup because they have been exposed to the brand before on a legitimizing billboard.
It would be great for you to be involved for Russia, join steemit.chat and make contact with me, my name there is thecryptodrive.
Such a great idea :)
Thank you margot!
The hard truth is 45 000 of 49 000 accounts on steemit are worth less than 60 USD, so most people are not making any money at all : https://steemd.com/distribution
The problem is inefficient curation, all of the voting power sits with a few people who are not able to vote for everyone. There are a few ideas here in these posts on potential improvements, not everyone is a writer and a network leader so the key is to create specialization areas for for merchants and advertising content consumers to be able to get involved as well:
https://steemit.com/steemit/@techemist/can-steemit-democratize-the-usd65b-publishing-industry
Voting power delegation is also another concept that could help:
https://steemit.com/money/@thecryptodrive/steemit-whales-stockpile-sp-government-spending-analogy-and-the-solution-revealed
I have a photo ;)
Nice, I like it! :) good mockup!
This only proves the value of the platform. It technically advertises itself.
Correct, lol :)
Advertising methods of the past to promote technology of the futur. The message sent is : We can't get people to our platform so we are using billboards now.
Billboards show the power of the blockchain community, you may not realize but this is making world history...the first billboard to ever be paid for by the blockchain itself just by users voting. It can be done on smaller scale, and cheaper advertising on the internet but it won't have the same grand impact of what the platform is capable of funding.
Remember that Coca-Cola uses print media extensively to create top-of mind presence.
How did I miss this wonderful post?? Good stuff guys!
In Durban? Good old Ethekwini... :)
Did this billboard ever make it up?
me too :)