Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Interactive outdoor - new tech billlboards

If you thought billboard advertising was 48 sheet posters, then take a look at interactive large digital advertising.

UKIP's spoof poster to Tory one
Traditionally in a general election campaign, political parties have favoured billboards, for advertising - the famous Saatchi brothers "Labour isn't working" is claimed to have won the General Election for Mrs Thatcher's Conservative party. Today the poster - and it is the poster, not posters - doesn't appear overnight as a nationwide campaign,  but on the back of a vehicle which serves as a backdrop for what in effect is a PR event. But this UK General Election is no longer a two horse race between Labour and Conservatives and this week the Conservatives duly unveiled a poster showing Labour leader Ed Milliband in the jacket pocket of former Scottish Nationalist leader Alex Salmond in a reference to the possibility of a Labour/SNP coalition. To this the UK Independence Party re-purposed the concept to illustrate Conservative leader David Cameron in the pocket of Euro boss Jean Claude Junker. Of course, whether most British voters would recognise the President of the European Commission is doubtful.


Digital and interactive
Meanwhile billboard advertising has gone digital and not just digital - interactive. Ocean Outdoor has recently teamed up with a charity and is using facial recognition technology to inter act with the advertisement. Read the story here.

Interestingly where advertising in print media is somewhat on the back foot, outdoor advertising seems to be embracing new technology.

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