Read The Signs

Online promotion is now flourishing faster than any normal means of getting messages out.

But staff at outside promotion hulk JCDecaux have a saying: "We're really great at carrying out what we're really great at."

Even even though the company's core business deduction in the shade of online promotion channels similar to Google, CEO Jeremy Male insists there is still lots of room for growth: "The great thing about outside promotion is that you can't spin the page, you can't switch it off - it's only there.

"So you have the skill to attain a sufficient broader assembly than online can."

But this does not meant the firm is adhering to out-of-date paper and paste.

JCDecaux is spending heavily on new technology which, nonetheless it now accounts for only 5% of its business, is being relied on to give outside promotion a new franchise of life.

The guarantee of pixels

Last year the firm invested in a 40% enlarge in its batch of digital displays, giving a complete of 6,500 screens globally.

These screens add billboard-sized displays in sight stations correct down to poster-sized displays on road stands and in bus-stops - but always in high traffic locations are where the chance of desolation is minimised.

Many of the screens are written to work in unity with definite promotion campaigns - quite ones that try to rivet consumers using interactivity.

A new campaign is to Ford Milky Way in the UK targeted dads out with their young kids on a legal holiday break. Bus shelters were versed with two well-defined screens, a on tip of the other. The aloft screen presented data about the Ford Milky Way whilst the descend screen kept the young kids assigned using interactive games.

A well-defined bus protection campaign for Aero Caramel chocolate bars attempted to rivet passersby with a "love-a-bubble" test. The screen presented dignified dilemmas and asked viewers to collect a reply from a set of options - after 5 questions it scored them on how 'love-a-bubble' they were.

Real-time ads

What creates digital screens even more absolute is the fact that many of them are versed with 3G sim cards, permitting them to be

"Suddenly you now have real-time outside advertising, that creates what you do far more adjustable than it was in the past," says Mr Male.

"We can have adverts that conflict right away to events, or that only manifestation a particular summary when the continue is a particular temperature."

When Louis Hamilton won the Brazilian Grand Prix, JCDecaux screens opposite the UK voiced the headlines inside of 10 minutes.

As those loiter times obtain shorter, digital signage might a day be deliberate other bend of online advertising, rsther than than a normal medium.

Happy shoppers

The ease with that digital signs may be

The TRN task giveaway emporium at Oslo airfield does precisely that. On a great day the emporium sells as many as 15,000 bottles of wine, with 1000 customers fleeting by its doors every hour - and it depends on shopfloor promotion to sell as sufficient as possible.

"Before the screens you only had a leaflet to discuss it people about our special offers, but nothing of our customers were meddlesome in it," says TRN's web director Christine Toemte.

"We have new offers every month and copy brochures is a lot of con - not only copy them, but moreover creation sure that the correct ones were being distributed in the store in any since month.

"Now you make a movie and put it on all the screens at the same time."

TRN uses a network called Ziris, done by Sony, that runs off a shelve of mutated Playstation 3 consoles sitting in a back office.

These consoles are related to the internet, and any granted associate of staff can produce new calm around a web page.

When a associate of staff wants switch to a not similar ad, it's as elementary as dire a symbol on a Playstation controller.

Ultra-specific

The outcome is that ads may be exceedingly definite and work in real-time - and according to Sony that is the key to a great display.

"There are dos and don'ts when it comes to conceptualizing messages," says Sony's Damien Weissenburger.

"If you're seeking to sell something, you must be really definite and really targeted. Promoting an on the whole brand will not help to sell a definite piece in your warehouse."

Customers at Oslo airfield do appear to observe the screens, and a few even admit that it affects their shopping decisions.

"It grabs your attention, primarily when its a high fortitude screen with splendid colours. But it moreover depends on the high quality of the shave being displayed - it has to be something value watching," mentioned Constantine Salnikow, who was fleeting by task giveaway on a revisit from Lithuania.

A number of comparison customers, however, hardly seemed to observe the screens and in any box denied that their purchases might be affected.

"I'm only concentrating on what I wish to buy," says Brit Brenne, returning from a legal holiday in Poland.

"If I'm meddlesome in special offers, maybe on groceries, then I prefer to obtain them by the post."

Staff statement

The use of digital signage in sell is usually expanding, but not merely in conditions of the number of screens.

Increasingly, incomparable companies are commencement to use the screens to speak to their staff together with their customers, by fixation screens in canteens and other staff areas.

"There are frequently hundreds of staff, working on not similar shifts and in not similar shops and warehouses, and they are really occasionally nearby a computer," says Paul Sigvaldsen from Norwegian firm 3C Technology, that commissioned the Sony Ziris network at Oslo airport.

"So instead of sending a pacifist email and awaiting staff to open it, you can residence them where they are."

The same pretty qualities of the screens may be used to capture the consideration of staff too - if companies know how to use the technology to full effect.

"The many familiar pretence is to put up a few headlines and continue forecasts, that all the staff are meddlesome in", say Mr Sigvaldsen.

"Once you obtain their attention, you can broach any summary more effectively."