Highway Billboards In Moscow Is Targeting Drivers Based On Which Cars They Drive

What Happened
Synaps Labs, a startup that focuses on dynamic digital out-of-home ads, has started testing its digital billboard along the highways in Moscow, enabling the billboards to change ads to target drivers passing by based on the models of their vehicles. By combining high-speed cameras and a proprietary machine-learning system that can recognize car models, its digital billboard is plugged into a bidding system then selects the appropriate ads to display as the targeted cars drive by. The company has planned tests for this digital highway billboards in the U.S. for this summer.

What Brands Need To Do
This digital billboard serves as the latest example of how AI-powered digital billboards may transform the OOH ads. Similarly, Smart data storage company Cloudian and Japanese advertising firm Dentsu has started testing similar billboards in Japan that can recognize the car models driving by and serve up targeted ads accordingly. According to a recent research from PQ Media, global OOH advertising revenue grew 6.2% in 2016 to $49.23 billion, with DOOH claiming most of the revenue growth. More brands should look for new ways to bring some interactivity and customizations to digital outdoor ads.

 


Source: MIT Tech Review

Swedish Pharma Company Debuts Billboard That Coughs When Smokers Walk By

What Happened
In an interesting case of digital out-of-home campaigns, Apotek Hjärtat, a Swedish pharmaceutical company, commissioned an anti-smoking billboard at a popular smoking spot in Stockholm. Equipped with hidden smoke detectors, the man featured on the billboard screen would start coughing loudly when the billboard detects cigarette smoke.

What Brands Need To Do
While it is debatable whether it is ethical or effective to encourage people to quit smoking by publicly shaming them, this digital billboard serves as the latest example of how sensor-laden billboards may transform the OOH ads. Similarly, a company in Japan has started testing camera-equipped billboards that can recognize the car models driving by and serve up targeted ads accordingly. According to a recent research from PQ Media, global OOH advertising revenue grew 6.2% in 2016 to $49.23 billion, with DOOH claiming most of the revenue growth. More brands should look for new ways to bring some interactivity and customizations to digital outdoor ads.

 


Source: PSFK

Header image courtesy of Apotek’s YouTube video

Zipcar Teams Up With Wrapify To Track Ad Impressions On Its Cars

What Happened
Car rental company Zipcar is teaming up with on-vehicle advertising firm Wrapify to measure their ad impressions. Wrapify, a San Diego-based startup that pays people to wrap their cars with ads, tracks how many people have seen their vehicle ads by pairing telemetry data from the car with anonymized data of road traffic from other sources. Zipcar will test Wrapify’s technology with campaigns in Seattle and Washington D.C.

What Brands Need To Do
Wrapify’s technology brings transparency and accountability to car wrap ads and allows advertisers to accurately measure the impact of such OOH campaigns. With this partnership, Zipcar can get a better understanding of its ad campaigns while Wrapify gains a large fleet of cars to run its ads on. Other brands interested in running a new kind of OOH campaign should reach out to our Client Services Director Samantha Holland ([email protected]) to talk about car wrap and other methods of getting your message out.

 


Sources: AdWeek

Recycling PSA Campaign Marries Live-Streaming With Digital OOH

What Happened
A PSA campaign by non-profit Recycle Across America live-streamed their celebrity-studded  photoshoot event in Los Angeles on 500 digital billboards across the U.S. on Thursday. The photoshoot was expected to generate over 3 million views on the billboards, which were donated by outdoor advertising agency Lamar Advertising to celebrate Earth Day.

What Brands Need To Do
According to Lamar Advertising, this campaign marks the first time a branded event was broadcast live on digital billboards at scale. Live-streaming has been gathering considerable momentum in recent months thanks to the popularization of Periscope and Facebook Live. So it makes sense to leverage the extensive reach of digital OOH to further expand the reach of live-streamed content. We expect to see more brands try their hand at this type of innovative OOH campaign.

 


Source: Digiday

Header image courtesy of Recycle Across America

Event Recap: LAUNCH Festival 2016

Last week, the Lab’s partnership team flew out to the West Coast to attend the 2016 LAUNCH Festival. An annual convergence of talented investors, founders, and startups, the festival has a storied track-record of catapulting new companies into the stratosphere, such as Dropbox, Fitbit, and Yammer. Over the course of three days, this year’s conference hosted over 15,000 attendees, over 240 startups, and a series of inspiring panel discussions and startup competitions.

After spending over 24 hours on the festival floor, viewing over 50 startup pitches and meeting with countless founders, the Lab has put together a shortlist of companies that can provide actionable solutions for Mediabrands agencies and clients.

Accountable VR
Virtual reality is a great way to create an immersive brand story, and more brands are beginning to test the waters by creating branded VR content. More brands have been warming up to VR content knowing that there have been over five million Google Cardboards shipped and new consumer-facing headsets like the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and Playstation VR are all set to hit the market this year. While brands won’t see immediate ROI from a VR content investment, eventually brands will want to know how their VR content is performing. EaseVR and CognitiveVR are working to solve this question. Both startups are working to bring deep analytics to VR so brands can understand how viewers behave within their virtual experience.

A New Mover In OOH
Two major challenges the out-of-home industry faces are measurement and an increasingly fragmented audience whose attention is continuously switching among screens. Wrapify‘s on-vehicle advertising platform is working to overcome these challenges by connecting brands and drivers to create and launch OOH campaigns locally or nationally with real-time reach and impressions count.

A Solution To Increase Direct Hotel Booking
Today, a ridiculously high number of hotel bookings come from sites such as Expedia and Priceline as consumers book mostly on price. Stay Wanderful is alleviating this $33 billion problem by partnering with merchants, such as Regal Cinemas, Hard Rock Cafe, and Whole Foods, to create an incentive engine for hotel websites to increase direct hotel bookings and reduce the reliance on other channels.

But wait, there’s more! Here are 4 additional early-stage startups we discovered from the festival that you should keep an eye on in 2016:

Pilot AI Labs enables real-time computer vision using deep learning on embedded devices. Their algorithm can be trained to track specific objects and can be used in drones, retail security cameras or digital signage, and smart home devices.

CafeX unveiled a fully automated robotic cafe at Launch Festival. Prior to arrival at the cafe, customers can use the CafeX smartphone app to order premium coffee drinks.

We2o is the world’s first philanthropy platform to enable donation of unused vacation time to charities.

Mindset allows users to connect their app to a wearable heart rate monitor to learn and track stress levels throughout the day. The app notifies users of fluctuations in stress and provides exercises created by clinical specialists to lower stress.  

 


Header image courtesy of launchfestival.com

MillerCoors and IPG Media Lab Help You Discover The Music Of NYC Neighborhoods

What Happened
In an innovative new outdoor campaign created and coordinated by the Lab team, MillerCoors teamed up with Intersection, maker of the LinkNYC kiosks, and popular music recognition app Shazam to bring location-specific music discovery to New York City. In a month-long pilot program, select LinkNYC kiosks will display Coors Light-branded playlists of what people in several NYC neighborhoods have been listening to, generated based on real-time data from Shazam. Passersby near those branded kiosks can open the Shazam app and get those branded playlists on their phones.

What Brands Need To Do
Thanks to the proliferation of smartphones and advances in out-of-home ad tech, outdoor display ads are getting more and more interactive and engaging. Aiming to connect with consumers on the go via their mobile devices, this new Coors Light campaign provides them with the fun of local music discovery, therefore earning consumer attention by adding value to its outdoor display ads.

If you would like to discuss how your brand can leverage new technologies to create innovative, dynamic OOH ads like this, please contact our Client Services Director Samantha Barrett ([email protected]) to get in touch with us and schedule a visit.

 


Source: AdWeek

 

Canon’s Outdoor Campaign Guides You To Better Photos

What Happened
In a creative case of outdoor advertising, camera-maker Canon launched a new OOH campaign in New York City that employs four pop-up digital billboards at the city’s most photographed locations. But instead of just playing ads for Canon, they offer onlookers some tips on how to take the best picture, each customized based on contextual data. 

What Brands Need To Do
As today’s tech-savvy consumers increasingly avoid ads, brands have to find new ways to make sure their messages are seen. This Canon campaign offers a great example as it uses contextual data to offer useful information and tips to its audience, and more brands should take note and offer real value.


Source: AdWeek

AT&T Courts Outdoor Advertisers With Dynamic Data

What Happened
In a bid to provide out-of-home (OOH) advertisers with better data and targeting options, AT&T has teamed up with Clear Channel to provide outdoor advertisers with more dynamic data aggregated from its mobile users. The program is titled AT&T Data Patterns, which promises OOH advertisers the ability to learn the number of people who pass by a Clear Channel-owned billboard or outdoor display, as well as detailed demographic stats about that group of people using AT&T’s wireless service, such as gender, age range, ethnicity, and income range.

What Agencies Need To Do
With AT&T Data Patterns, marketers using Clear Channel’s OOH network will be able to better plan their campaigns and place more relevant ads with the enhanced audience data that AT&T now provides. Of course, not every pedestrian is using AT&T’s service, but given the telecom giant’s customer base of over 126 million wireless users, it should provide a sample size big enough for marketers and agencies to mine some actionable insights from.


 

Source: AdAge

Event Recap: “Meet Link” LinkNYC Media Event

On Thursday afternoon, IPG Media Lab attended a media event for LinkNYC, an ambitious project that will turn old payphone sites in New York City into a network of state-of-the-art kiosks that offer free services like high-speed Wi-Fi, phone calls, and device charging, along with outdoor advertising displays. Following the debut of the newly designed “Link” kiosk on stage, the event featured a panel discussion on the marketing potential and the social utilities this program could bring to the five boroughs. Moderated by Miko Rahming, SVP of Innovation/Creative at Intersection, the panel consisted of Susan Seller, Head of Design at Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fred Dixon, CEO of NYC & Company, and David Rosenberg, a managing partner here at the Lab.

During the discussion, all three panelists commended the social good this program can bring. Seller singled out the “de-cluttering” effect LinkNYC will have on the city’s appearance by removing old payphone booths, a sentiment echoed by Rosenberg. Dixon, on the other hand, highlighted the “profound effect” that LinkNYC will have on people that don’t have access to high-speed internet, as it provides them with basic connectivity and services and helps the city bridge the digital divide.

Moreover, the panelists discussed the marketing potential of the program. They agreed that, as a dynamic digital experience supported by ad-serving platform and technology, LinkNYC would allow for creative flexibility, real-time ad delivery, and data-driven targeting. It will offer mass connectivity and city services via digital touchpoints, while also enabling brands to reach millions of New Yorkers and visitors with their messages. As Rosenberg aptly pointed out, this program taps into the ongoing trend of brands “starting to move into the space of providing utility and service in order to earn a place in consumer’s life.” After all, when brands provide real value in addition to their ads, consumers would be much less likely to block them out.

Overall, the consensus among the panelists seemed to be that, LinkNYC represents a new breed of hyperlocal ad platform that blends social utilities and branded content, heralding the future of digital outdoor advertising. The program is set to launch later this year, and brands looking to connect with New Yorkers on the go should definitely take this innovative, data-driven OOH ad space into consideration.

Vector Media Puts Gimbal Beacons On Buses For Next-Level OOH Ads

What Happened
Vector Media and beacon solution provider Gimbal have announced a partnership that will upgrade Vector’s transit advertising network to incorporate proximity marketing services. Through this partnership,  Gimbal will provide “both geofencing and beacon technologies” for the 500 buses in Vector’s nationwide network, adding new targeting capabilities for out-of-home ads.

What Brands Should Do
For brands that are looking to take their OOH campaign into the mobile age, hit a wider than usual cross section of a city, and connect with today’s mobile-first consumers, this new initiative between Vector Media and Gimbal provides a great example of how proximity technology can add a contextual layer to non-digital ad formats with added value to engage with the audience.  


Source: ScreenMedia Daily

Header image courtesy of Vector Media’s Twitter