CA Wants to Monetize License Plates
30 Jun 2010Desperate for cash, the state of California is looking for ways to generate new revenue. One option that is being explored is to monetize license plates by adding digital advertising to them. Is this a smart, forward-thinking move or is it a far-fetched attempt to get funds?
Advertising is certainly a way that a lot of individuals and businesses generate income these days. Heck, Google‘s made a big business off of the money-making properties of advertising. Mobile advertising is one of the hottest new emerging ways to make money. So it’s not too far off to think about the potential for generating revenue through digital ads elsewhere in the world.
But on license plates? Not surprisingly, the idea comes from Los Angeles (having been proposed by Sen. Curren Price), a city where people spend a whole lot of time sitting in traffic. The thinking surely has to be that instead of that time being totally wasted, you can use it to advertise what you want others to buy. It is possible that this would help to generate significant, much-needed income for the state. The new technology used to digitize license plates could also end up saving money for the state in the long-run if it streamlines the process of car registration.
Anticipating the arguments, it has already been established that the advertising would only happen while the car was not in motion. While the car was actually driving, only the license plate number would show. However, there are surely other kinks that would have to be worked out with this technology. After all, if you’re digitizing license plates then you may be opening up a whole new can of hacking worms that we aren’t prepared to deal with.
Still, it’s an interesting idea, isn’t it? Nevertheless, the proposal itself won’t be finalized until early 2011 so it will be a long time before this actually gets realized.
Tags: california advertising, digital advertising, digital license plates, license plate advertising






