Illuminated advertising signs – company sign use cases and advantages
Light-up company sign with your logo
Maybe we first clarify the basic question: Why do you actually need an illuminated advertising sign? Glad you asked! We don't want to reel off the entire marketing presentation now, but the hard facts are these: Without unique selling propositions, it's impossible to stand out from the ever-growing competition.
Let's use the Internet as an analogy: How will your customers find your business if you don't have an online presence in the form of a website and/or social media profiles? Just as a homepage is your online signboard that tells potential customers about your business, a company sign is your "IRL" signboard.
This brings us to the definition of the first advantage of an illuminated outdoor sign. After all, the purpose is first and foremost to attract attention and make a company easier to find. This is especially true for trades or companies that depend on walk-in customers – think of retail or restaurants, for example.
Advertising signs for small businesses and big brands
A great example is this projecting sign of the Swedish pizza chain Deglabbet from Stockholm: The double-sided, fully illuminated lightbox corresponds in colour and font to the corporate design and the brand name is printed on the sides, while the front and back simply proclaim "pizza". The sign stands out 90° from the facade and people walking towards it can see from a distance that this is a pizzeria.
Apropos "corporate design": The "corporate identity," CI for short, should be the basis of all further advertising measures, whether digital or physical, with lighting or without. The CI specifies colours, fonts, sometimes also certain contexts of use and permissible variations (e.g. colour worlds). Company signs and illuminated advertising should always comply with this CI, as should print advertising or online advertising media, in order to create a unique and unmistakable brand identity.
Where are illuminated outdoor advertising signs used?
If you understand illuminated advertising as a signpost for your customers, it’s pretty clear that the placement plays an important role. After all, the shining sign should also be seen! A simple projecting sign like the one in the pizza example above is always a good idea. It doesn't matter if your business is aimed at walk-in customers or not – because visitors or suppliers also want to find you without having to count house numbers or use a route planner.
This in combination with a frontal company sign or an illuminated logo on the facade ensures that a business location can be seen from all directions. Accordingly, the size of the advertising sign also plays an important role: for example, can it be easily seen (and read) from a distance, e.g. across the street? The advertising sign should always be in an appropriate size ratio to the front of the building. Illuminated signs that are too large quickly appear ostentatious and unserious, while (too) small advertising signs can be more easily overlooked despite lighting.
Kekz is doing it just right: The startup for innovative headphone technology for children has outfitted its Munich flagship store with a logo made of illuminated acrylic letters above the display window as well as a projecting sign, both in the CI colours orange and white (the illuminated letters glow white on the sides). The double-sided lightbox was furthermore customised in the shape of the logo, which is reminiscent of a cookie. This is how creative signage works!
The use cases described so far were examples of permanently installed illuminated company signs. But there are of course other possible applications – such as temporary outdoor advertising, i.e. illuminated signs for temporary advertising campaigns.
One example project that has become legendary among us is the Amazon Music marketing campaign, for which we produced an approximately six-metre-wide logo consisting of front-lit letters that adorned a building wall at Hermannplatz in Berlin-Neukölln for several months.
However, custom advertising signs of this size and campaigns of this scope naturally have their price and are therefore unfortunately only suitable for large companies with a corresponding marketing budget range. The professional installation alone at this height is not so easily done and therefore also expensive.
How to buy light up advertising signs
We've got you hooked and you want to order a lighted advertising sign for your business? Maybe, just maybe, Sygns is the right place for you!
We currently have two ways for you to design and order your custom advertising sign:
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Our online configurators are available for glass neon and LED neon, there you can upload your design or logo in vector format and directly configure size, colour(s), mounting option etc. yourself according to your requirements. If you don't have a vector file, our designers can create one for you in most cases. You can conveniently order the items you configured online.
- For all other products, you can request a free quote by filling out our online form and uploading your graphic file. We will manually create a price quote including a rendering of your future advertising sign based on your input regarding size, colour, materials, etc.
The following types of products are best suited as illuminated outdoor advertising signs:
Neon
Our classic! Whether glass neon or LED neon, pre-mounted or without background, you can never go wrong with neon in all variations. Attention guaranteed!
Lightboxes
Front-facing, single-sided or projecting, double-sided lightboxes are also classics of the advertising technology industry, but by no means boring. There’s a great variety as personalisation options are numerous; plus an illuminated projecting sign, as described above, is really a must-have anyway.
Lit letters
As you can best see from the two examples above, Kekz (side-lit letters) and Amazon Music (front-lit letters), illuminated letters have their own unique charm. In addition to the variants shown, we also offer letters and logos with backlighting as well as fully illuminated letters.
Which type of illuminated sign is best for your purposes depends on many factors: The building (not to mention the related local regulations), the logo design and brand identity, and last but not least, of course, personal taste. The central question is always what you want to achieve and what message you want to send to your potential customers.
Send us your ideas for your own illuminated advertising sign (whether for outdoor or indoor) – we look forward to making your business shine!