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The digital signage tour of London

Digital Signage Today editor Bill Yackey goes on a digital out-of-home scavenger hunt through the digital signage capitol of Europe.

April 26, 2009

In the days leading up to Screen Media Expo in London, the DailyDOOH blog published an article entitled What To Do In London The Day Before Screen Expo, which highlighted some of the most interesting and worthwhile installations in the city.

Thanks to the very efficient Underground subway system, I was able to see some of the sites myself before and after the expo. 

St. Pancras Passenger Information Points I took the EuroStar in from Paris to St. Pancras station, so the first installation I saw was the St. Pancras Passenger Information points, 11 of which are set up in walkways of London's newly-renovated train station. The kiosks are equipped on each side with two NEC screens, a 32-inch interactive unit and a 46-inch display in portrait mode.

Oxford Street Walking up and down one of London's busiest corridors shoppers and commuters can find screens galore, many of them in the windows of cell phone providers such as O2, the Carphone Warehouse and Vodafone. Most notably, Eyeconic and WindowGain installed double-decker rear projection screens in late 2007 directly across from the Oxford Circus station. Interestingly, they were running the same content as WALK's StreetlevelTV by Motomedia.

Westfield LondonWestfield is London's newest shopping mall and is nicely located near Olympia, where Screen Media Expo was held. Much has been made of BF Group's installation of CBS Outdoor pods at Westfield last year, which are placed about every 100 feet in the main walkways of the mall. There are also some interactive wayfinding kiosks and installations from Carlipa Group in the Marks & Spencer and Debenhams at Westfield, but the bobbies didn't take kindly to my filming so this tour stop was cut short!

Harrod's Fortunately, one of the world's most famous department stores has a bit more liberal video policy, so my visit to Harrod's was a bit more worthwhile. The entire store is decked out with LG screens used for wayfinding and branding. The famous Egyptian escalator features digital signage in between every floor and large screen at each landing. In the electronics retail area Harrod's has installed a gesture-based LG-branded floor screen that changed content about every two minutes.

Victoria Station This station, one of many that Titan Outdoor has outfitted in London, features a huge LED Transvision screen in the central area as well as 17 digital posters scattered throughout the station.

Heathrow Express This train goes back and forth from Heathrow to London Paddington in 15 minutes and has become a lifesaver when I'm running late. The train features on-board screens running informational and entertainment content, as shown in the video below. I only took the train one-way from Paddington to the airport this time around, but if you are going the other way you can see a Sidetrack Technologies installation of 360 LED bars over 450 meters of tunnel that flash as the train goes by and creates a video ad that looks like its running alongside the train car.

To see a video of London's SideTrack installation,click here.

There are two stops on the DailyDOOH tour I wasn't able to make – Heathrow Terminal 5, because I was flying to the U.S. out of Terminal 2, and the Walkabout bars near the Thames in Central London. You can read more about those in original blog post.