Here are five things billboards can do in the future.

React to things around you

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Many billboards are already equipped with cameras and antennas to help them recognize their surroundings and detect small changes nearby.For example, a Swedish billboard shows a man coughing every time someone approaches with a cigarette.Ashamed enough, smokers then saw advertisements for anti-smoking products to help them quit.

This is a small-scale version that you will see in the future.Sensors will not only tell billboards about the weather or nearby smoke, but billboards will be programmed to interact with us.They lead people to talk about their smoking, rather than just pointing to a lit cigarette.

Benefits: the more personal your interaction with the AD, the more likely you are to try the product.

Read your smartphone

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We're also in the early stages of this phenomenon -- clear Channel's Radar program tracks anonymous data to measure the impact of outdoor advertising and help customers better target it.

But in the future, your smartphone will provide billboards with keys to enhance their relevance.They scan your app and social media interactions to instantly find out about your interests and demographics.These can provide insight into what types of ads should be shown to you.

Now, it's not like minority report -- there are too many people rushing by to single out a single person to display ads for.But billboards read population data to make a decision. Hey, 60 percent of passers-by have cats, so here comes the litter AD.

The upside: instead of offering dog food ads to all cat owners, you get ads for products you might actually be interested in buying.

Providing augmented reality

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There is AR now, but it will become more powerful and powerful in the future.The real value of AR is that billboards are not limited to billboards.

Any surface can be a place for your ads.This provides plenty of real estate for savvy sellers and creative agencies.This makes advertising almost inevitable.Fortunately, it also makes advertising fun, so people don't get too annoyed when it shows up in places where there used to be no advertising.

Using screens and video devices, AR can create unexpected scenarios.A London marketing campaign, for example, has installed a screen on one wall of a bus shelter that appears to show some incredible events, such as a giant octopus grabbing a passer-by and a woman dropping balloons from the sky. 

The future AR will be even stronger.People don't just see these scenes in front of them;Billboards immerse them, so they feel as if the experience is happening all around them.

The upside: these activities are limited only by imagination -- the people at the AD agency have an amazing imagination that will enable people to talk on social media (or in the future, no matter how we communicate and share emoji).

Keep the static

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Does that surprise you?With all the talk about technology, big data, and interactivity, you'd think the billboards of the future would be high-tech.But the truth is, static billboards are still effective and essential outdoor advertising.

Some attractive traits include:

1. It costs less than digital billboards

2. They draw attention

3. They provide a canvas for unparalleled creativity

In addition, there are far more static billboards than digital ones, even though many have been retrofitted in recent years.So don't write off static billboards just because something new keeps showing up.

The upside: there's always something to be said for a classic.

Blend into its surroundings more seamlessly

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You can almost always tell what a billboard is and what it isn't.While native ads became popular on the Internet a few years ago, blurring the line between advertising and real content, you don't see the same opportunity in the outdoors, at least not yet.

A campaign is under way to make billboards more artistic.To help them integrate into the landscape to a greater extent than they would be an obvious advertisement.

Think of sculptures that tell a story and advertise it, or advertise in places that aren't normally advertised, like the entrance to a park.Anything can be a billboard if you put your mind to it.In a world where ads often feel like they're hitting us in the head, subtlety pays off.