Advertising column and procedure for its use

The subject of the present invention relates to an advertising column and a procedure for its use.

It is widely known that information-carrying devices placed beside busy roads are able to send a message to many potential consumers. Of the various types of information carrier the traditional advertising column is still in frequent use. Characteristic of the construction of traditional advertising columns is that they have a cylindrical surface on which paper-base advertising material is fixed with adhesive. In the case of new advertising material the existing advertising material serves as a base for the new material to be affixed. As a consequence of the method of use a thick paper layer is formed on the advertising columns consisting of sheets fixed to each other with strong adhesive, and this has to be occasionally scraped off in order to clean the surface. However, the increasing thickness of the paper layers has a damaging effect on the aesthetic appearance of the advertising columns, as a consequence of the increasingly uneven surface it becomes increasingly difficult to affix new advertising material, and due to the numerous paper layers the size of the surface also increases, which makes planning the size of the posters difficult.

Some of the advertising columns of today also have other functions apart from providing the surface, like, for example, advertising material placed underneath a transparent external covering, which, in this way, can be properly illuminated. Advertising devices are also known

that have rotating surfaces or surfaces carrying out other motions, where the surface to be presented changes according to time. These solutions, however, due to their requirement for energy and their moving parts are more expensive to operate than traditional advertising columns, also characteristically the material has to be replaced when putting up new advertising material, which means an increased amount of labour time - and so extra costs - as compared to simple gluing.

Due to their low operation costs traditional advertising columns have a sure place in urban information displaying, however, due to the numerous, frequently only partially covering and ripped paper layers these advertising columns damage the town image, and in such a neglected environment the advertisements are less able to draw the attention of the target group.

We have set as a task the construction of an advertising column that can, on the one part, be operated with low costs, that is it does not require and energy source, does not contain an external transparent covering, moving parts, and the advertising material can be replaced with a low investment of labour time, and, on the other part, during its operation a thick paper layer is not created that is difficult to deal with and that is aesthetically displeasing.

The basis of the present invention is the recognition that the thickening of the information-carrying paper sheets forming a covering layer - posters containing advertisements, event information, etc. - on an advertising column beyond a preliminarily determined thickness can be

prevented and as a consequence all disadvantages overcome if we fix a single-use, replaceable carrying jacket to the external surface of the advertising column with a releasable connection, which is made of a material suitable for using with poster adhesive and supporting several layers of glued poster, and to this we affix the first layer of poster, the others are also glued to this first layer, then after reaching a determined layer thickness the carrying jacket is removed along with the layers glued to it and in its place we fix a new, single use carrying jacket - also with a releasable connection - for a new poster-sticking cycle.

On the basis of the above recognitions we have solved the set task in accordance with the invention with the help of an advertising column which has a surface suitable for affixing posters and a carrying jacket fixed to the advertising column with a releasable connection and the external surface of the carrying jacket forms the surface suitable for affixing posters.

According to an advantageous embodiment of the invention the advertising column has a carrying jacket made of a flexible material, which is fixed to the advertising column with the use of clamping rings.

According to another advantageous embodiment of the invention the carrying jacket is fixed with the use of clamping rings, which are locked in the region of their ends.

According to another further advantageous embodiment of the invention at least two clamping rings are placed at the upper and lower regions of the carrying jacket.

According to another advantageous embodiment of the invention the clamping rings are embedded into the material of the carrying jacket.

During the procedure according to the invention information-carrying posters are glued to the surface of the advertising column according to the following steps:

- a single-use carrying jacket is fixed to the side surface of the advertising column with a releasable connection;

- posters are glued to the carrying jacket in several layers that cover one another;

- on reaching a predetermined layer thickness the carrying jacket along with the layer formed by the posters affixed to it is removed from the advertising column;

- a new carrying jacket is fixed to the advertising column, and the above operations are carried out once again.

According to an advantageous embodiment of the procedure according to the invention the carrying jacket is fixed with clamping rings.

According to another advantageous embodiment of the procedure according to the invention on reaching a predetermined layer thickness the carrying jacket along with the layer formed by the posters glued to it is removed by longitudinally cutting through the carrying jacket and the poster layer.

Therefore, according to the invention an advertising column is set up so that, for example, a single-use, replaceable carrying jacket is fixed to the side wall of a

cylindrical advertising column of any diameter that has a suitable surface for the adhesive material used to glue up the poster to adhere to, and so to support the advertising material to be affixed, and, furthermore, which carrying jacket is connected to the sidewall of the column with clamping rings in such a way so that it may be removed. Following this, the advertisements placed on this surface, in accordance with the features of traditional advertising columns, may be covered with several layers of advertisements, however, on reaching a certain layer thickness - determined by the operator of the column - the mass of advertisements consisting of several layers may be simply removed by releasing the fixings of the replaceable carrying jacket.

Depending on the planned use (that is presence of damp, temperature, frequency of replacement, total mass of advertisements to be glued, the glue used to fix the advertisements, or other technologies, etc.) and the size of the carrying jacket, it can be of paper, impregnated paper, textile, plastic, plastic-coated paper, paper strengthened with plastic and/ or metal fibres, paper strengthened with plastic or metal netting, or a combination of these. The paper may be the type of paper used as the basic material of advertising posters, recycled paper, the plastic and plastic coating may be polyethylene, polypropylene, PVC, or recycled plastic. The two sides of the carrying jacket may also differ, e.g. the one side may provide the adhesion to the side wall of the advertising column (e.g. its material could be rubber and/ or its texture could be ribbed), while the other side could be a surface that the adhesive material

used to glue the posters adheres well to (e.g. paper). The possible basic materials or formations of the carrying jacket listed above only present a few advantageous solutions, the sphere of protection of the present invention is not restricted to these. According to an advantageous embodiment of the invention the replaceable carrying jacket may be made with a waterproof surface.

The replaceable carrying jacket may be fixed with two or more clamping rings. The optimum number of clamping rings or their material is determined by the size of the replaceable carrying jacket, the size of the sidewall of the advertising column, the material of the sidewall of the advertising column and the total mass of the advertisements to be stuck up. On the basis of this the material of the clamping rings may be paper, textile fibre, plastic, recycled plastic, rubber, metal or a combination of these (e.g. plastic coated metal wire); where the plastic may be polyethylene, polypropylene, PVC, and the metal iron, steel, aluminium or copper. The construction form of the clamping ring may be fibre, wire, chain, ribbon, pipe; the clamping ring may be flexible, or a rigid body with the required number of pivots, or a combination of these. The basic materials and construction forms of the clamping ring listed above only present a few advantageous solution, the sphere of protection of the present invention is not restricted to these. Depending on the circumstances several types of clamping ring may be used to fix the same replaceable carrying jacket, e.g. in the case of a carrying jacket with a large surface area there may be two metal wire clamping rings at the edges and a weaker (cheaper) paper

ribbon clamping ring in the middle. According to an advantageous embodiment of the invention the side wall of the advertising column has an indentation, groove at the height where the clamping rings are fitted conforming to the width of the clamping ring used in the interest of the carrying jacket being supported better.

When putting up the replaceable carrying jacket the clamping ring may be locked in several ways. The locking may be ensured by locking elements at the two ends of the clamping ring that fit into each other, adhere to each other or supplement each other. The purpose of the locking of the clamping rings is so that the clamping rings grip the carrying jacket to the sidewall and fasten it there. The fastening needs to be strong enough to ensure the fastening of the carrying jacket to the sidewall even in the case of the force of the load originating from the glued poster layers. The locking at the two ends of the clamping ring may be ensured by a buckle, press-stud, fastener, a single or multi- component adhesive, hook and eye fastener, bolt. The locking may be releasable, in this case the clamping ring may be reused, or not releasable (e.g. gluing). The locking elements may be independent of the material of the clamping rings, e.g. plastic fasteners positioned at the ends of a metal clamping ring may also ensure locking. The possible methods of locking the clamping ring listed above only present a number of advantageous solutions, the sphere of protection of the present invention is not restricted to these.

The positioning of the replaceable carrying jacket onto the advertising column takes lace in such a way that the

carrying jacket piece conforming to the size of the sidewall of the column cut to size in advance or at the site of the column is positioned onto the sidewall of the column. It is important for the size of the carrying jacket to be large enough to completely surround the sidewall of the advertising column and for the two ends to overlap each other by a few centimetres in the interest of the total surface of the sidewall to be used for advertising being surely covered by the carrying jacket. After this the carrying jacket that has been placed and temporarily held (e.g. by hand) onto the sidewall is clamped to the sidewall of the advertising column using two or more clamping rings, so the adhesive friction occurring between the carrying jacket and the sidewall will ensure the fastening of the carrying jacket to the sidewall.

The removal of the carrying jacket full of posters normally becomes necessary when the number, mass or the circumference of the external layer of the stuck on posters reaches the limit value determined by the operator. To remove the carrying jacket filled with posters first the clamping rings need to be removed, e.g. by simply cutting through them in the case of the application of a non- releasable clamping ring locking method, in the case of the application of releasable clamping rings, e.g. a buckle, by opening the buckle, or by cutting in the case of single-use clamping rings. After the clamping rings have been removed by cutting through the poster layer, the poster layer glued to the replaceable carrying jacket may be removed from the advertising column. Advantageously the cutting of the poster layer should be carried out parallel to the

longitudinal axis of the column, depending on the thickness of the poster layer this may be carried out by knife, or another device that has a blade, or using a hand or powered saw.

According to an advantageous embodiment of the invention one or more clamping rings are embedded into the replaceable carrying jacket. In this case the carrying jacket consists of at least two layers, where the clamping rings are positioned in between the two layers, and there are protrusions at the edges of the carrying jacket for the fastening. The locking elements are attached to these protrusions. The advantage of this embodiment is that the replaceable carrying jacket can be positioned onto the sidewall of the advertising column more simply, as there is no need to provide separate support for the carrying jacket while the clamping rings are being applied, instead by locking the clamping rings the replaceable carrying jacket can be positioned in a single movement.

According to an advantageous embodiment of the invention the replaceable carrying jacket contains text or a design (e.g. the name or logo of the operator of the advertising column, like, for example, the organisation responsible for the maintenance of public areas, settlement, political party, etc.). This solution makes it possible to identify the operator of the advertising column or to put up notices (e.g. "Election campaign posters!").

In the case of certain advantageous embodiments of the replaceable carrying jacket and clamping ring, the carrying jacket, and the clamping element that can be formed into a clamping ring on positioning, can be

transported to the advertising column in a roll, and following the determination of the circumference of the advertising column the desired amount of replaceable carrying jacket and clamping element can be cut off the rolled material.

In the following the invention is described in detail on the basis of the attached drawing, which contains an advantageous embodiment of the replaceable carrying jacket of the advertising column. The drawing contains

Figure 1 showing the advertising column according to the invention in side view.

The single use paper carrying jacket 4 with a polyethylene protective coating on both sides is fastened to an advertising column standing on an, e.g. concrete, base 1, here with an, e.g. metal, sidewall 2 and top 3. The replaceable carrying jacket 4 is fastened to the sidewall 2 with plastic clamping rings 5. The locking of the clamping rings 5 to themselves is ensured with locking elements 6, e.g. plastic buckles. The coverage of the replaceable carrying jacket 4 extending to the whole circumference of the sidewall 2 is ensured by a 5 cm overlap 7 of the ends of the replaceable carrying jacket 4.

The size of the replaceable carrying jacket 4 is selected in such a way that it covers the entire circumference of the sidewall 2 and also ensures the approx. 5 cm overlap 7 following being wrapped around the sidewall 2. Following wrapping the replaceable carrying jacket 4 around the sidewall 2 the clamping rings 5 are also

positioned onto the surface of the replaceable carrying jacket 4 at the appropriate height of the sidewall 2 (e.g. at approx. 10 cm from each of the edges of the replaceable carrying jacket 4) and then the clamping rings 6 are fastened using the locking elements 6. The clamping rings 5 fastened in this way force the replaceable carrying jacket 4 to the sidewall 2, so it is not able to move and securely supports the poster layer to be affixed to it.

The posters may be affixed to the area of the replaceable carrying jacket 4 fastened to the sidewall 2 bordered by the clamping rings. Leaving the clamping rings 5 free makes it possible for them to be simply removed at a later date.

To remove the replaceable carrying jacket 4 filled with posters, first the clamping rings 5 are removed by undoing the buckles, then by cutting the poster layer parallel with the longitudinal axis of the side wall 2 with a knife the replaceable carrying jacket 4 and the poster layer glued to it may be removed.

The advantage of the present invention is that advertising column's replaceable carrying jacket for sticking posters to makes it possible for the operator of the advertising column to remove the unnecessary poster layer using a simple procedure. As a result of its simplicity this solution effectively unifies the fast and low cost regeneration of the advertising column and an aesthetic appearance that conforms with the requirements of the modern cityscape by providing the opportunity of easily regulating the thickness of the poster layer building up on the advertising column.