Online advertising fraud is costing businesses millions of dollars and the perpetrators are getting away with it.  That has prompted New York based video ad server, Vindico, to take over billboards in busy Midtown New York City.  They are promoting their legitimate product, while letting people know there are very good scammers out there.  Vindico’s  President, Matt Timothy, says this is just the beginning of their efforts.  Timothy says he plans to advertise on more locations and run the campaigns indefinitely.  For more details on the men believed to be behind one of the lucrative schemes, click here.

A grieving mother in Kennesaw hopes a billboard campaign will prevent other parents from going through what she’s going through…the loss of a child to a heroin overdose.  Missy Owen lost her 20 year old son, Davis, in March.  He was President of his class in high school and on the Dean’s List at Kennesaw State University.  Owen says “Heroin has to become a public conversation.  It’s not a dirty little secret.”  She wants parents to understand that their child could be next.  The South Cobb Parkway billboard shows the web address for the foundation in Davis’ name that Owen started on his 21st birthday.  To see the full article, click here.

A Cincinnati, Ohio based billboard company is breaking new ground for extending the reach of billboard advertising.  Norton Outdoor advertising is working with Florida based app developer, The Lazo Company, to offer a new “LAZO” app.  The app allows users to search billboard ads in up to a 50 mile radius from their current location.  Norton has over 900 billboards in the Cincinnati area, but only about 10% of them will be equipped with the location tracking software that allows the LAZO app’s use.   The app allows people to access billboard ads and special offers through their smartphone.  The system also allows advertisers to change their ads and offers depending on the time of day.  For more information, click here.

 It’s been months of waiting, but now, construction has begun to transform Corey Tower into a giant digital billboard.  Owner Billy Corey says he hopes the board will make the tower even more of a landmark in the Southeast, comparing it to the Statue of Liberty and the famous St. Louis Arch.  The board is one of the largest in Atlanta, measuring 80 feet tall and 25 feet wide.  It is expected to be complete by the end of the year.  The billboard traveled quite a distance to make its debut in Atlanta…it was made by Yesco and shipped here from Utah.  Yesco is famous for making digital billboards for Times Square and the Las Vegas Strip. For more details on the tower’s history, click here.

It’s been nearly 2 years since Timothy Ashley was killed during an armed robbery while walking home from work on Danforth Road in SW Atlanta.  In that time, the trail for the suspected killers has gone cold.  Shortly after the murder, authorities released sketches of two people believed to have also robbed someone else in that area shortly before Ashley was attacked.  Now, the Fulton County DA’s office has put up billboards with suspect sketches, hoping someone will come forward with information.  Three billboards have gone up in SW Atlanta and the suspect’s photos are also posted at bus stops in that area.  Crimestoppers is offering a $5,000 reward for information that leads to an arrest in the case.  For more details, click here.

Business owners in Cobb county are not holding back when it comes to their feelings about building a stadium and moving the Atlanta Braves team to their turf.  They have formed a group called “Cobb Home of the Braves” and announced this week that they have put up 6 billboards around Cobb County with messages similar to the one shown above.  Next Tuesday, Cobb county commissioners will be voting on the proposed $672 million stadium.  The proposal includes a guarantee that the Braves would use the stadium for the next 30 years.  The “Cobb Home of the Braves” group held a news conference near the proposed site on Monday to announce the billboards and hand out signs and foam tomahawks.  The proposed site is located near the Cumberland Mall.  For more details on the story, click here.

One of the candidates for the Governor’s office in California thinks his key votes may lie right here in Georgia. Tim Donnelly, a member of the California Assembly, is targeting all of the people associated with the film industry that now work in Georgia.  Donnelly contends that Hollywood, California is now only a name, because so much of the production on the industry’s top films is now done out of state.  He says states like Georgia and Louisiana now house much of the film industry’s leading people and support staff because of the massive tax breaks for that industry in those states.  He has proposed similar tax breaks for the state of California, but they have yet to pass.  For more on Donnelly and what his opponent thinks of the campaign, click here.

A Putnam county woman is considered kidnapped after her husband’s body is found decapitated in their home.  Authorities say 87 year old Shirley Dermond of Lake Oconee has been missing for nearly a week.  Police say she is not a suspect in the death of her husband and they fear she is in danger.  Billboards have gone up all over the state of Georgia and into Tennessee to help find her.  The investigation continues into who may have wanted harm the Dermonds, but so far authorities have no leads.  Anyone with any information on Mrs. Dermond’s whereabouts is asked to call the Putnam County Sheriff’s office at 706-485-8557.  For more on this story, click here.

Billboard is First of Its Kind

An engineering school in Peru, UTEC, is expanding and the fact that the construction of the new campus harms the environment is not lost on them.  Students there came up with a billboard that filters the air…a first of its kind.  The billboard is said to do the work of about 1,200 trees.  While this billboard is the first air-purifying billboard, it’s not the school’s first environmentally friendly one.  Last year, the school designed a billboard that turned humidity into purified drinking water.  For more details on this story, click here.

It’s being called the “Earth’s biggest environmental threat” and new billboards are going up to try and raise awareness.  Atlanta is one of the cities included in the campaign launch against “Climate Engineering” also known as “Geo Engineering.”  Billboards went up in Georgia, Michigan and Arkansas last week asking people to ” ‘Look Up’ God no longer controls the weather.”  A non-profit agency called “Skyder” is behind the billboards…they want to make sure people start paying attention to the cloud like streaks in the sky, which they say are from unregulated geoengineering and pose a threat to our health.  For the complete article, a video and to see pictures of the billboards, click here.