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'The Night Watch' comes to life on digital signage

Dutch telecom KPN took animated versions of famous Dutch paintings to interactive displays around the Netherlands to celebrate a record first year for the newly renovated Rijksmuseum.

December 5, 2014

Animated versions of some of the most famous paintings of the Dutch Masters went on tour from their home in Amsterdam's iconic Rijksmusem and around the Netherlands on digital signage.

The museum's main sponsor, KPN, decided to take the paintings to the public to celebrate the first anniversary of the newly renovated museum, a year that saw record attendance. So earlier this year, paintings from the famous gallery "came to life" via 86 digital signage displays positioned around 16 metro stations in Amsterdam and Rotterdam, according to a case study from digital signage hardware provider AOPEN. Passersby could even put themselves in one of the paintings with a selfie taken from the displays' integrated video camera, and then share the image via social media.

The Rijksmuseum has more than a million visitors a year and went through renovations in 2013 to modernize the museum using digital media in its interior design. In April of 2013, the Rijksmuseum opened its doors again to the public — and after a successful first year with a record number of visitors, Dutch telecom KPN decided to celebrate the occasion with a special campaign.

"As a main sponsor we value the beliefs of the Rijksmuseum to make art accessible for everyone, and this was something we really wanted to share with the public via this campaign," said Aline van Keulen, manager of corporate branding and advertising at KPN, in the announcement. "The placement of the displays with animated paintings in metro stations in Amsterdam and Rotterdam enabled us to create a digital art gallery while reaching a wide audience varying in age, ethnicity and gender."

For one week in April the stations were transformed into digital art galleries: "The Milkmaid" from Vermeer poured out milk, and Rembrandt's "The Night Watch" came into action for the first time in history, according to the case study. Via the interactive digital displays, viewers could also make a "Rijksselfie" and place themselves as one of the main characters in one of the famous painting of the Rijksmuseum. The results were instantly visible on large-format displays, and the selfie could then be shared and uploaded via a KPN link connected to Facebook.

Dutch interactive digital media firm CS Digital Media developed the concept of the digital out-of-home campaign for KPN, and the system ran on AOPEN Digital Engine DE6100 AMD Quad Core media players. The weeklong media campaign in 16 metro stations and on 86 digital displays yielded 1,354,445 impressions, AOPEN said, and results from six interactive displays showed that 28,513 people stopped in front of the displays; 5,740 #Rijksselfies were created; and 1,497 #Rijksselfies were uploaded to KPN Facebook and shared via social media within one week.

"During this campaign we interviewed several passers-by and asked them for their personal experiences with the digital posters," CS Digital Media Client Services Manager Pauline de Waardt said in the case study. "They were positively surprised by this fun way of presentation. The combination of art and animation was experienced as fascinating and [admiration] worthy."

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AOPEN (An Acer Group Company)

AOPEN is an Acer Group company that specializes in small form factor commercial, medical, and industrial computing, as well as touch display technology for digital signage, kiosks and POS solutions as a leading global hardware manufacturer.

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