Interactivity Continues to Advance in the World of Outdoor

Out of home advertising, an industry frozen in time for the last 100 years where the same static posters and billboards we’ve grown up with being pasted around the town, is now advancing at tremendous speed with outdoor digital signage, not only modernising the industry, but as the technology advances more and more innovations are being implemented.

Yahoo! Bus Stop Derby from Obscura Digital on Vimeo.

Interactivity is proving increasingly popular with out of home advertisers for several reasons.  The use of touchscreens has great advantages for advertisers as it encourages the audience to use the device—and therefore receiving advertising messages.

Advertisers need to offer something in return, and Obscura Digital have recently unveiled the Bus Stop Derby, a game system branded with internet giants Yahoo (see video below).  Launched last November, nearly 200,000 people have played the bus stop game—this is a precise figure which enables advertisers like Yahoo to estimate how successful the branding campaign is.

And other interactivity is being implemented which may completely alter the way advertisers pay for out of home advertising.

Ayuda Media systems unveiled, at DSE 2011, their camera recognition system installed in their screens> Whilst this is not a new idea, Ayuda are using the technology to bill clients per view, rather than for estimated footfall or other methods out of home advertisers use to bill clients.

This means that Ayuda’s clients will now see the precise number of exactly how many people saw their advert, which could prove really advantageous for advertisers who always need to know what the return on an advertising investment will bring.

More and more interactive systems are continually being developed using touch screens, camera systems and other interactivity making the future of out of home a two-way experience.