Article
Digital signage ads in airports
Targeted messages reach people on the move.
April 10, 2008
Editor's note: This story is excerpted from "Digital Signage in the Transportation Industry." Clickherefor a free download of the entire guide.
Ask any advertising expert about digital signage and he'll tell you that one thing is for sure. It gets attention. From an advertising standpoint, it provides huge advantages for reaching customers. Those advantages are enhanced in an airport setting.
In the digital signage industry, we often talk about reaching captive audiences. Researchers try to find when and where consumers will be most likely to look at digital signs and, most importantly, when and where they can be most influenced by digital signage to spend money.
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Not incidentally, many of those researchers have found that consumers pay more attention to digital signage content when they are in a situation where they are waiting. The term is called "wait warping," and it occurs when a customer perceives his wait time to be shorter because he is entertained during that period of time. It is another reason why the airport, where people wait for hours at a time for flights, is seeing such an influx of digital signage applications.
More digital signage geared toward advertising is being seen in concourses, as well as in the small commercial businesses that exist inside the airport. Retail shops, food courts and media companies who buy advertising all are taking advantage of this outlet when it is available. All of these companies use digital signage as an alternative to the traditional static signage and backlit displays. By doing this, they have the ability to decrease the amount the costs of printing signs, play content at specific times of day and remotely control their displays, all of which increases their marketing and advertising effectiveness.
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A JetSet Media screen in a luxury lounge in Essex, N.J. |
Last year, Digital Signage Today profiled JetSet Media, a company that is focusing its digital signage efforts on a more exclusive and hard-to-reach group: the elite traveler.
The Kansas City, Mo.-based digital signage content provider operates screens in 70 private terminals (known in industry parlance as fixed base operations, or FBOs), bringing a mix of advertisements and information to c-level executives, celebrities and athletes.
JetSet's typical audience member has a net worth of $10 million and an investment portfolio of $6 million, buys a new luxury car once a year and owns at least two homes.
The company was founded in January 2006, and turned on its first screen in May of that year. President and founder George Kauffman said landing those first few venues was incredibly difficult.
"Gaining the venues was nearly impossible in the early going," he said. "I often say getting the first six was much harder than getting the last 50. And what's more, we knew going in that (we'd need) at least 50 FBOs in order to sell a single ad on this network."
Ad buyers not only get access to an incredibly exclusive audience, they can segment that audience even further and target it geographically; ads can run across the entire JetSet network, or just in desired markets. Ads can run on a playlist or can be triggered by external stimuli (for instance, an advertiser can have different pieces of content for different weather conditions).
"Once we saw the screen, we were sold," said Russ Boy Jr., proprietor of Fort Lauderdale-based National Jets. "The screen sure does get a lot of attention in my facility."
Chicago O'Hare International Airport
One of the limitations of airport signage of any kind is that it often can be looked over by passengers as they rush to get to the ticket counter or to their flights. An emerging tactic from advertising companies has been to use interactivity as a way to draw people in and create a captive audience, especially among those travelers who have to wait in terminals for flights.
As part of this initiative, Accenture, a Chicago-based management consulting and technology services company created a high-definition interactive display in the Chicago O'Hare International Airport. The display is made up of nine separate DLP screens combined to make one large display. The high-definition screen measures 10 feet by seven feet and displays news, weather, entertainment and sports content. The screen is touch-enabled, and users have the ability to control what type of content is displayed on the screen by touch. It also has multitouch capability, which means that multiple users can control content at the same time. The content was developed by professionals in Accenture's Technology Labs, and all of the screens can be updated remotely from that location.
In addition to the freestanding Accenture digital displays, O'Hare International is seeing more digital signage used for advertising going up on its walls.
Elsewhere in one of the Midwest's largest airports, Clear Channel Outdoor, the largest outdoor advertising company, has plans to install a large digital billboard indoors. The board will feature eight 6-by-8 foot LED screens, programmed to run eight-second advertising spots continuously.
Las Vegas McCarran Airport
The Las Vegas Strip is a virtual blur of digital signage in its most extravagant form, so it only makes sense that Vegas' McCarran Airport follows suit. Although not as flashy and large, digital signs have been placed in McCarran by Orlando, Fla.-based Monster Media. But these signs, which are used for advertising, aren't just standard examples of digital signage.
Monster Media is using the signs for immersion-based advertising, where passers-by are filmed by a small camera and their images show up on the screen as part of the advertisement. Viewers can interact with aspects of the advertisement by moving their hands or bodies around. For example, viewers can make Skittles candy scatter on the screen by waving their hands across a pile of them in the ad.
Alliance Airport Advertising, which sells the indoor ads for McCarran Airport, has signed a two-year agreement with Monster Media for the immersive advertisements. And Alliance likes the concept, mainly because it brings in more money than traditional static advertising. According to Alliance, it costs $3,000 per month to advertise on a static sign, while Monster yields $12,000 per month for each advertiser using the interactive digital signage.
Monster Media CEO Chris Beauchamp says customers are entertaining themselves with the digital signs, and he hopes it will take their minds off long, irritating waits at the airport.
The first advertiser to take advantage of Monster's program was TravelZoo, an online travel publisher. One of TravelZoo's first ads featured an interactive slot machine where customers could virtually pull down the handle and win travel-related prizes.
At its inception, some questions were raised as to the legality of taking someone's picture and putting it on the screens without his permission, but Monster Media insists that since the data is not recorded in any way, it is completely legal. The company also noted that by entering a public space, such as an airport or transit system, you automatically give up that right, anyway, like appearing in a tourist photo.
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