Lamar Advertising's Maps and Photos system is a mapping system that allows the sales staff to create map proposals for prospective customers. It contains maps, detailed information, and pictures of the billboard panel locations accessible through an online geographic information system (GIS). After researching several vendors, Lamar Advertising chose ESRI's ArcWeb Services to host the new system. "ESRI was the only vendor that could accommodate the requests of Lamar's sales staff," says Tom McNamee, chief information officer, Lamar Advertising. "They needed to include multiple maps on their proposals, have access to demographic maps, have the ability to distinguish between different types of panels, and include the ability to save maps in different formats. We chose ESRI because it provided all the data and features our users were requesting and would be easy for our Management Information Systems Department to implement." ArcWeb Services offered Lamar Advertising a way to include GIS content and capabilities in their applications without having to host the data or develop the necessary tools in-house. With ArcWeb Services, data storage, maintenance, and updates are handled by ESRI, eliminating the overhead of purchasing and maintaining large data sets. Lamar Advertising introduced the online service in two phases. The first phase was completed in September 2003 when all maps in the system were redone using ESRI's batch geocoding process to ensure placement accuracy of the billboards. Now, Lamar's sales staff can enter an address location requested by a client and do a search radius in miles to find all available billboard panels within that radius. The second phase began in June 2004 when a map editing system was introduced. The editing system allows users of the system to change and edit the maps for use in client proposals. Lamar Advertising's Web Services group maintains the site. More than 1,200 users request an average of 1600 map proposals each day, each including an average number of 15 maps.

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About ESRI

Founded in 1969, ESRI is the leading developer of GIS software with more than 300,000 clients worldwide. ESRI software is used in all 200 of the largest cities in the United States and in more than 60 percent of counties and municipalities nationwide. Headquartered in California, ESRI has regional offices throughout the United States, international distributors in more than 90 countries, and more than 1,700 business partners. ESRI's goal is to develop comprehensive tools that enable users to efficiently manage, use, and serve geographic information to make a difference in the world around them. ESRI also provides consulting, implementation, and technical support services. .