Video advertising for sports scoreboards offer a number of positive choices and solutions. As the ‘creative engineer’ you and your advertising team will be responsible for developing quality video for your sponsors. Today’s technology allows non-professionals the ease of video creation, with some simple options available to just about everyone.
Videos can be created as a preroll video, typically in .wmv format or you can use a slideshow format with displays static single page ads. Each style uses a different type of software. The preroll video will require a computer base (laptop, pc or Mac), movie camera(s) and software such as TriCaster, vMix, Wirecast or Casper CG. Editing tools are available so that you can take the various ‘shots’ and blend, delete, enhance and duplicate as well as overdub and add music as background. Studies have shown that the preroll video format with enticing content capture and retain a larger audience than a static ad. For the advanced user, software such as MStream allows multi-screen video advertising and will stream via an electronic scoreboard as well as social media feeds. You need to keep in mind that full video advertising requires more time and dedication than a static or slideshow ad.
Creating a slideshow advertising campaign for your sports scoreboard is a lot easier and there are many inexpensive software packages available. ProShow Gold gives you the options of inserting your single page static ads with page editing and even includes the ability to add music or announcement recording with an automatic timer to match the number of slides. Creating the static page ads can be as easy as using PowerPoint as well as Photoshop, for complete customization. Make sure that any software package you choose offers the ability to convert the ad into all movie formats as well as export to a disk or thumbdrive for portability.
The decision of scoreboard advertising type may depend upon your actual sports venue. Considerations for an outdoor scoreboard should include the lack of control over such topics as weather, lighting and acoustics. Not all outdoor situations work for video advertising and you may want to do a variety of tests to see if streaming video is the choice you should make over static and slideshow. Indoor sports arenas bring more control over temperature and acoustics; however lighting is still a consideration. If there is low or too much lighting, any advertising format you select will have to be adjusted for clarity.
When creating a preroll video, there are some shortcuts that can turn a less than perfect video into a much higher quality. There are Auto HD selections in some software as well as via Google Chrome and Firefox for YouTube presentations. The Auto HD choice brings a higher quality in pixels, which will enhance the visual. A good slideshow scoreboard advertising software gives you speedup or slow down options, as well as some very sophisticated page adjustments for the graphics, color and tones.
Each advertising format has pros and cons and your selection should be based on your available time, talent, funds, technology and sponsorship requirements.