Outdoor is changing as paper and paste is superseded by something with far more potential.

From bus shelters, to supermarkets and enormous digital spectaculars such as Times Square, digital is having a big impact on the traditional outdoor market.

Digital out of home is revolutionising the way brands connect with consumers by bringing richer, more integrated communications and extending the value of the outdoor spot.

The challenge at this early stage of the medium’s development is the plethora of different opportunities available. In the UK, there are 78 screen networks alone, covering everything from hair salons to antenatal departments in hospitals. And it is this diversity that can cause headaches for planners.

“At one end, there are digital posters in shopping centres and at the other there are digital TV networks such as Cabvision,” says James Davies, board director at Hyperspace, a division of outdoor specialist Posterscope. “As a planner, you need to work out where the screen sits in terms of reaching your audience, and the brand and agency need to put some effort in to understanding what screens are available and what works on each one.”

One of the most successful networks is salon network i-vu, where there is a long dwell time and screens allow consumers to “click-through” to detailed information pages about products.

In the main, digital out of home splits between two extremes, the small niche offerings, such as i-vu, and the big screen spectaculars in high-profile city locations across the globe.

Spectaculars in Times Square
Digital advertising agency R/GA operates two digital billboards at the south end of Times Square – the Reuters and NASDAQ screens – that combined create what it claims is the largest billboard in the world. “It is a rare case of integration of two signs, so they can be used in a tactical campaign,” says John Jones, executive creative director, R/GA.

Executions carried out using the billboard include: a game for Yahoo! Autos used the New York Auto show to create a game, where consumers went head-to-head and raced each other on the billboard viatheir mobile phones. While an interactive campaign for Time Magazine encouraged users to take a photo of themselves and have it displayed on the screen as part of Time’s Person of the Year. Nike iD used the screen to allow consumers to design their own trainers, before purchasing them via a mobile phone.

Technology is also widening the appeal of these digital spectaculars, so they can be used in ways that are not intrinsically linked to their location.

“A company could have an event in Munich, but the pictures you take on your phone will be displayed in Times Square and you can make it available for people to see online,” says John Mayo-Smith, R/GA’s chief technology officer.

“The software and platform is flexible and we are trying to learn how people use this new media. Last year, we ran a campaign using the screens and 10% of those who took part were from Taiwan, which illustrates, for the first time, that spectaculars have a measurable global reach.”

R/GA is now investigating how digital spectaculars can be linked into community activities. For example, it ran a campaign for Nokia that used a scavenger-hunt concept, whereby consumers uploaded photos of the things they found to the digital screens, and also linked the content with the web.

A little bit further north in Times Square is Clear Channel’s Spectacolor HD, which was launched last October. The company owns and sells the ad placements in seven to eight-minute batches in one-hour slots, with most advertisers using a series of smaller length spots interspersed throughout the hour to make up their allotted time.

High definition
Advertisers such as Ford and Pioneer are using the site. One of the attractions of the Spectacolor is its HD broadcast capabilities and integrated Bluetooth. Ford has been using Spectacolor to promote its Ford Sync product – the car makers’ new fully integrated, voice-activated, in-car communications and entertainment system for mobile phones and digital music players.

“Bluetooth is a way for advertisers to engage individuals following a call-to-action from digital billboards,” says Michael Steinberg, vice-president of sales and marketing at Clear Channel Spectacolor. “We have offered CNN downloads and we hit 200,0000 phones, with a good percentage interacting. Brands can now reach out and touch an individual using out of home.”

Going HD was also a conscious decision to stand out and Clear Channel takes advantage of this by keeping four minutes per hour back to playing public service announcements and other HD content. The CNN YouTube debates for presidential candidates will also be broadcast on the screen and it can carry live content in the event of breaking world news. In addition, the board also offers free Wi-Fi access.

The success of Spectacolor in New York is leading Clear Channel to consider rolling it out to other destinations in the US, with Vegas the likely next destination to go HD in out of home.

“In the industry, there is support for digital out of home,” says Harry Coghlan, president, Clear Channel Spectacolor. “Digital solutions are looked on favourably by all advertisers, both big and small, which increasingly need to stand out.”
Like Clear Channel, many major outdoor players have invested in digital networks in a bid to create a middle group between big one-off spectaculars and narrowcast media.

The importance of dwell time
In London’s train and tube stations, CBS Outdoor is turning card-escalator panels into digital screens that can be linked to create more compelling content – a facility used by a host of brands including Guinness. And when passengers reach the platform, trials of Cross-Track Projection technology mean that moving images can also replace paper on many sites below the city’s streets.

Other environments with high-dwell time include Heathrow’s new Terminal 5, where JC Decaux is investing heavily in digital out of home. “We are in a trial period,” says Mike Segrue, global chief client officer at outdoor specialist Kinetic. “Landlords such as Transport for London – which runs London’s tubenetwork – will demand more revenue from CBS, which will need more sites to achieve this. The cost of technology will come down and make it better and add value. Take-up will eventually be huge and it is breathing new life into an old medium.”

How long this takes is still unclear, but the revolution is here, and it is digital.

The brand challenge
The issue for advertisers is how they quantify the engagement value of these new technologies.
Solutions could involve measuring the number of downloads or linking the digital out of home experience to other channels. Many advertisers are currently using digital out of home as a narrowcast medium, but the need to increase the level of engagement with consumers is clearly driving