hahahaha... somebody added a new tag to this thread (wasn't me)
here's an idea though (sorry nightD, I patented it already) ...why not illuminate the client NAME instead of the signs border?
The sign itself will of course be brightly lit using the super-bright LED lighting strips located along the inside edge of the frame, but also the frame itself will be lit too.
If you're referring to backlighting it, there will also be version for that, like for clamping onto a truck's tailgate/side (making the mobile advertising industry more accessible to the small business and people wanting to start earning some mobile advertising $$ without having to permanently "wrap" their car in a single co's ad).
If you are referring to anything more complex than that, that's just more $$ that would need to be spent unnecesarrily on R&D+manufacturing which = higher pricetag. The whole point here is to make it as accessible as possible to every small business owner too, not just the big guys with deeper pockets. In advertising, if you've can offer something to business owners that's effective AND economical, you've got an all-around winner accross the board.
And just showing a name is not really getting the point of directional advertising. The signspinning firms that hire those signspinners (whether their spinners be zombies or gymnastic sign-flippers) has the client customize their signage to say whatever and look however they wish, but the point is to DIRECT (hence the name "directionals") vehicle AND/OR pedestrian traffic to a specific place close by using an arrow-shaped sign and/or other directing techniques (like pointing). At night, this is very difficult to impossible. This is where my lighting frames come in.
So if you can imagine an arrow-shaped frame (pointing in the direction the client chooses) with animated lights, encasing a brightly-lit cheap coroplast sign saying "60% OFF CLEARANCE AT MACY'S NEXT RIGHT", and have that at a time when EVERYONE is off work and actually able to shop...that's absolute GOLD to any advertiser/business, and they'll pay premium directional advertising rates ($50-100/hr, depending on time of yr) for that kind of service. They can either purchase the frame, or just rent the service.
And to all those in the peanut gallery here who are poo-pooing the whole human directional thing...ever wonder why it's still being used after all these years?? BECAUSE IT WORKS! It's remained a strong industry for years even through this recent economic downturn while other marketing firms have taken a hard hit. Regardless of how annoying the signspinners are to any of us, the firms that hire them are making MEGA HUGE $$$. They pay the signspinners a very small fraction of what they charge the businesses for their services. And they always get results.