Digital meanderings and conversation starters

We’re frequently asked by ENGINE, our parent company, to help educate the rest of the group about the opportunities presenting us all in marketing. We’ve not got a media agency within the group, and sometimes the planners in Altogether Digital find themselves bringing media opportunities to life, and not exclusively online.

We were having a conversation with one of the planners here about the shifting nature of planning. He referred to a PSFK conference that suggested planners are the new creatives. Our Creative Director might get a bit angsty if we were to suggest that, but it’s interesting to think of planners as the new media planners.

It’s not that we’re going to start fiddling with numbers and costs and timings, but in as much as we need to understand how people are engaging with brands, how they are not restricted by comms plans, and instead see a myriad of communications from thousands of brands, it is important that planners know what media opportunities are out there. What might surprise, cut through, engage, entertain, add value and start conversations. What digital media opportunities are there that might get people to Giveashit?

Just a caveat or warning: We’re not suggesting that people look to each one of these examples as gospel, or are necessarily real opportunities for every campaign, it’s simply so we know what’s going on in the world of digital media.

Children of Men is set in 2027. It’s included here as an example of how marketing might look in the near future, as it might set our thoughts for the opportunities ahead of us. We could just as easily have put in The Matrix, but Children of Men is frankly, an amazing film & we highly recommend watching it.

Digital outdoor – where digital media are being used to revitalise ‘traditional’ forms of outdoor advertising, a form of marketing that has barely changed for nigh on 100 years. Why else do you think we still talk of 6 sheets, and other terms which come from the use of posters?

JC Decaux have been using The Torch on the M4 for a while as a tester site for their digital advertising. It’s a fairly static site with messaging that can be changed from a remote server.

Clearchannel and Titan and others have been pushing their own digital outdoor. JC Decaux have 20 of these 48 sheet billboards being launched in 2008 in London. What’s interesting about these is that they can be updated very easily; the example above is Times Square in New York and theoretically it could be used to advertise Starbucks in the morning (to commuters looking to get a shot of coffee) and Bud in the evenings (to those going out for a drink). Truly targeted advertising.

Escalator panels (40-100 screens at each of 18 locations), and digital 6-sheets (18 stations, 225 screens) are growing fast in the Tube. The best work though is that which takes advantage of the medium and doesn’t presume it to be a simple conversion job. Sony’s Balls bouncing down the panels, or Rocky running up them – far better than the static images usually associated with these spots.

Cross track projections – like the 6-sheets and escalator panels are handled by CBS Alive. This example shows how the moving images can be used really creatively in a way which is bound to catch the attention of commuters.

There’s no sound on them (apparently they thought that us Brits would get annoyed), but they’re being put into stations from August 2008. By the way, can anyone confirm that they’re piping classical music into certain Tube stations to calm irate rush hour travellers?

For years now I’ve been thinking about how advertisers could reach the one area of the transport network to have so far remained untouched: the tunnels that make up most of the Tube.

There are lots of companies trying to find ways to tap into the captive audiences zooming about under the city but ironically it’s a very old method that’s being tested right now; Heathrow Express is using Zoetrope technology, where a series of still images viewed at speed appear to be animated. One problem is that a single execution costs somewhere in the region of £200,000-£300,000, and only lasts 15 seconds. Like I said, we’re not saying that this stuff is right for every campaign!

The Evening Standard have introduced easily updateable, electronic, headline billboards at a number of prime locations around town. These can have their headline updated instantly with the latest eye-catching titles and indeed the only problem I can foresee is that the billboards could end up being more up-to-date than the newspaper they’re advertising, constrained as it is by printing times and the like.

Here you can see a guy who offers his services out, carrying a portable digital billboard. He even has speakers so that the ads can have sound. Talk about entrepreneurial. Have a look at a video that shows how much fun they can be.

Adrants has something positive to say about this technology – mainly that if it’s worn by hot girls you ‘ll get better recognition… though promoting your technology alongside the Segway might give you an idea of how successful it could be.

This shows holograms produced using technology called Cheoptics360. It really is amazing; like my Princess Leia fantasies come true (though, not those ones…) Again, cost might be an issue for many brands, but it’s truly an insight into what’s possible. I believe that our sister company, Woo are looking at using this technology shortly, for one of their clients.

QR codes are a potentially grower in terms of outdoor media. If you walk past a poster with one of these on, and you photograph the “barcode” you could be sent about 4kb of data – not much, certainly, but enough to send 2-3 pages of a brochure, or indeed the start of a novel. If brands increasingly need to be having a dialogue with their consumers, this is a good opportunity. The examples above include our own QR code for Sky One’s “Lost”, whilst Medwyn – our technical director, has written about QR codes previously.

The problem that we see with them is two fold: firstly education. In Japan and Korea they are commonplace and people are comfortable with such technology. I’m sure that people here in the UK will get used to them eventually, but when it comes to phones, there’s been a general distrust of new technology since the advent of texting.

The second issue relates to having the technology built into your phone at source. You can download a reader from many places, including reader.kaywa.com, but even then the success of reading a QR Code relies on the quality of your camera phone. If these issues can be addressed then QR codes may well tip into the mainstream.

Try it out with our Lost code!

Better than QR codes in terms of information, is Bluetooth. This is what we’re doing – also for Lost – at Victoria Station. Whilst you can transmit video, images & tickets to gigs, and indeed then, at a gig, transmit exclusive tracks or wallpaper etc, there’s still a large education job to do. People probably won’t have their Bluetooth activated all the time since it drains battery, and those that do would feel interrupted and their personal space violated by a random, unsolicited Bluetooth text sent to them. Still, engagement and enhanced experience means that Bluetooth has great potential and offers good opportunites for brands, if you’ve gained permission first.

Both Orange and the Carphone Warehouse have interactive window displays, but frankly, other than a PR piece, I’m not really sure they’re adding anything. They work best at night, when you’re least likely to shop for a phone; and why would you want to browse a window display for all and sundry to see? I’ve not seen anyone actually use these particular displays, but hey, at least they’re trying.

Elle Macpherson’s Interactive Window Display is a much better example of interactive displays, and not simply because semi-nude women are still the best way to promote anything!

Adobe’s Window Display that tracks your movements, is another more interesting example of interactive windows.

Interesting how it’s fashion companies that are trying out this new technology. You might have noticed that Alexander McQueen with Kate Moss and Diesel on their runway have both used the hologram technology we showed earlier. Here’s another of a fashion label using interactive technology; Ralph Lauren’s interactive window display. However I’ve got the same criticisms with this iteration as with the Carphone and Orange examples, though sensibly you complete your purchase via email.

This interactive bus shelter for Nokia nicely demonstrates the touch screen technology of the phone.

This interactive floor display is cool, but what about when you’re in a busy shopping centre, or it’s not night?

Mini took car owners’ details when they purchased a car and stored it in the key fobs. They then used RFID signals to communicate, in a perfect brand voice, with people as they drove past the billboards. Really, very cool… but potentially as dangerous as “Hello Boys” and Eva Herzigova’s breasts.

This series of BBC World ads in New York asked passers by to text in their opinions. The tally was updated automatically, but then discussed each morning on local news-stations.

This is not about definite branding examples or opportunities, but they should hopefully inspire people!

Christopher Baker’s work is brilliant, but his interactive architecture is a particularly wonderful, charming idea. Have a look through his site for a few other videos.

Philip Worthington’s Shadow Monsters are equally fabulous!

The Helsinki City Wall is very cool, but we can imagine you’d get rather a lot of arm-ache if it were used as a proper interface. Great fun though – have a look at the drunks using it on Youtube.

We love Graffiti Research Lab. Truly pushing boundaries & raising questions about what graffiti, and indeed street art, is. They believe that advertising is pushing the broken window theory more than graffiti ever did, in making citizens feel depressed and the environment polluted.

Sao Paolo agrees with them, as WCRS’ Sky Movies advert demonstrates! GRL have been plundered without credit for more than a few campaigns in their time, which is a shame, but we’d love to see someone using this interactive laser tagging technology

Seadragon and Photosynth were demonstrated at possibly the finest TED talk ever, were one of the reasons we wanted to do this presentation. Phenomenal. Watch the whole video!

Banksy wrote this apparently, and it’s a rather nice thought, developing on from Graffiti Research Lab’s. But it also introduces the idea that there are people out there interacting with traditional advertising already: street artists.

This is Dr Geko, who puts up work over bus shelters that, when light shines through them at night, fundamentally changes the image.

The Decapitator is taking over in East London. At first we thought that this was actually a PR stunt, but it turns out to be utterly sincere.

This is work from Tono or Tano over in Chicago, making nice “see-through” signs by photographing what’s behind the sign and then overlaying…

…and this is Amnesty International. Talent imitates, genius steals, right?

Adidas, as part (and we do mean, only part!) of their excellent breadth of Adicolour promotions left blank, white-posters around Berlin, with the following quote, or similar, beneath:

For those colours you wish to be beautiful, always prepare a pure white ground

You can imagine what happens to white “canvas” in a cityscape, right? Covered with graffiti…

…but if you then cover that up with an outline of your Adicolour shoe, leaving the body of the shoe hollow to bring to life the graffiti underneath, it demonstrates the product really nicely: a shoe that you can fully customise and make unique.

Nike have successfully demonstrated our chairman, Robin Wight’s theory of the benefits of art sponsorship and the Peacock’s Tail. In this case, it’s billboards in LA showing work from underground artists – Jose Parla, Kaws, Geoff McFettridge, Ryan McGinness, Dash Snow… with barely any of their own branding. Diesel do the same in Berlin and Milan with their Diesel Wall project

UPDATE: The Diesel Wall Project’s just gone bigger

So, hopefully that’s inspired you all enough to take something to your clients (or to inspire a new campaign if you are a client), to think about what’s possible in terms of digital outdoor marketing. We at Altogether Digital are in a great position to bring these ideas to life for you or your clients – just get in touch and give us a brief!

Now, go take on the media agencies at their game.

| February 14, 2008 | GIVEASHITABILITY, OUTDOOR ADVERTISING | comments (1)

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