A Wider Net

Sony has a really cool-looking mobile exhibit rolling around the country at >$4/gallon. I have to admit - it looks like a giant toy that I want to pick up and play with. It comes completely loaded with lots playable product demos in individually themed environments.

My only criticism, having not experienced it firsthand yet, is: In these days of ridiculous gas prices, thanks to the ultra-rich who continue to line their portfolios with speculated gluttony, and our fear of environmental Armageddon only surpassed by our fear of four more years of bush-alikes, why would you roll out an 18-wheeler the size of Delaware and drive around the country with a bunch of PlayStation’s? Compare that to Nintendo, who chose to associate themselves with a Smart Car in their launch campaign.

Having JUST co-written an article with Turtle Transit’s General Manager, Joe Doyon, in the May/June issue of Exhibit Builder Magazine about the use of smaller vehicles for mobile marketing, I’m a little sensitive to this sort of thing.

Compare:

Having just written about the gas price visualization, I thought I should get this one in front of you, too: An Australian advertisement that helps you visualize CO2 emissions from every day tasks and devices by portraying the emissions as filling up black balloons and releasing them skyward. Very good storytelling.

The advertisement is part of a “black balloon” campaign which states that each balloon can hold 50 grams of greenhouse gas. You can even download a desktop widget so you can tally up the emission equivalents of leaving your computer running. It’s not a true “widget” because you have to install it as an applications, but it’s a great idea nonetheless.

Loved finding this at Infosthetics.

Flogos are helium-filled foam shapes made of a soapy material that is bio-degradable and safe for aircraft (says the manufacturer). The machines, rentable for about $2,500 a day, create 24″ or 36″ wide logos at a rate of one every 15 seconds, which sounds great if you have a simple logo and need to catch attention at an outdoor event. They are apparently working on a 48″ version. Despite the manufacturer’s claim, I question how happy a traffic copter pilot will be to fly into a four-foot-wide logo made of anything, but having not tried it - I can’t knock it.

I’m a little late to the party on this one, but eagle-eyed Sue Pelletier apparently picked it up, as did OhGizmo! (where I found it initially) and several others. You can read the original source at Live Science and a great post on BLDG BLOG that contains some other sky advertising images and a very interesting article about sky writing from, believe it or not, 1892.

Readers of this blog know that I love unusual outdoor billboards and displays. Here’s one that conveys a simple message: Smoking causes blindness. It’s a simple trash can cover that gives you the creepy impression that you’re poking out a giant eyeball every time you throw something away.

I’m afraid to find out what they would put over the trash can for that OTHER activity that causes blindness…

Thanks again, Billboardom

WindowGain, based in Newton, MA., has developed a unique model around outdoor video billboards. They have gathered ideas from event/staging companies, digital signage networks, retail displays, and billboard ad sales, then greatly extended the practices and technology to create a first of it’s kind network of large-scale daylight-visible video billboards. There are lessons here for everyone in the marketing, exhibit, and advertising industries.

The opportunity: WindowGain realized there are plenty of empty storefront windows around the country that create inexpensive opportunities to place content in busy public locations. They needed a way to get great quality content on those surfaces, keep them constantly changing, and keep the costs reasonable.

The technology: They needed very bright images and a system of distributing content to multiple locations. Similar to the edge-blending techniques that are being used for large scale video projection at corporate events, they created their own blending and warping technology that allows them to combine multiple video projectors to seamlessly produce massive High-Definition images with twice the light output of any single projector on the market. Arrays of smaller projectors have other big advantages: They tend to be cheaper to buy and maintain than big single projectors and they require a fraction of the projection distance so they can fit in tight storefront window-sized spaces. Once they had the image projection problem solved, they created their own digital signage software that allows them to distribute content to all the signs in their network. Similar to the big signage platforms, they can mix media - video, flash, powerpoint, and live feeds - and combine different content types onto one screen. They can tailor the content by time of day, day of week, time of year, and location. It sounds like a very comprehensive solution.

The most popular storefront signage solution that I have seen uses see-through holographic screens, which do not block the windows for visitors trying to look through the window. But they tend to be small screens, since most holographic screens are only available in smaller sizes, and because they are semi-transparent, they can look quite cluttered if the area behind the screen is brightly lit. WindowGain has solved these issues by targeting windows that no one uses anyway and using solid screen materials.

Content creation: While they accept content from automatic feeds and from customer’s agencies, they also produce content for customers upon request. Their ability to automatically receive and publish content from data feeds also means that these displays can provide information such as news, stocks, weather, and scores that viewers will appreciate in return for having to look at the big advertisements.

The result: They have created a network of high profile high quality digital signage opportunities that they sell to advertisers - local, national, and global. They have also taken dull empty windows and filled them with brilliant images, breathing life into a busy business district. This is a great story about finding ways to reach people, overcoming technical obstacles, and delivering something attractive in place of emptiness.

I suspect the people from this thread will have something to say about the possibility of lots of big video displays around the city, but I personally love the idea. I think that as long as they can maintain a minimum level of visual quality and appropriateness for a public space, and mix it up with artistic elements that people find attractive, then the lack of precision targeting will be forgiven and the visual improvement to the area much appreciated.

Engadget published a terrific video of the Optimus Maximus keyboard at CES. You may recall that this keyboard has tiny full-color displays inside each key cap that allows they keyboard to change its appearance for different applications, user preferences, languages, etc.

In this video, the inventor Art Lebedev describes much of the functionality, and makes it really appealing to anyone working with macro-intensive applications (Photoshop, edit software, etc), gamers, etc. As I mentioned a year ago, there must be a way for a company to buy the rights to display their logo on one of those keys and drive traffic to their website, in return for subsidizing the cost of the device. That sponsor could even change that logo remotely to reflect special promotions (Woot! - are you listening? I need a woot-off key!).

I’m assuming that the key labels can change when you depress the ctrl, shift, and alt keys - making the process of finding those obscure macro keys and shortcuts far easier.

Now… if only Mr. Lebedev would send me one to review extensively…

Billboardom covered these great video billboards/digital signs that feature the character in one billboard hucking a snowball at the character in the other billboard. Good clean fun. And very achievable with multiple screens in your exhibit, your lobby, the hallways of a trade show, or on the screens of Times Square. Just think outside the boxes.

The folks who created the giant KFC logo in the desert of Nevada have made their impression on Google Maps.

I checked maps.live.com and they do not show it yet.

Here is a video detailing it’s construction:

If you’re wondering if it was worth it, given the fact that the casual Google Maps user has no business looking in on random patches of desert (you have to zoom in to view only a few miles at a time in order to see it), then check these links out:
A story seen on Digg that so far has almost 2,000 diggs
Fox News.

Found via Billboardom

Related posts:
Google Earth Blog
Ad Lab
Ad Lab again

Big3D - the big, er, 3D people famous for 3D motion lenticular billboards and soon-to-be-famous for delivering printed video clips have launched their 3D motion cups.

Big3D has been able to produce high resolution (9600dpi) lenticular 3D and animated posters and cards for years now, but they have managed to get the material thin enough to wrap around a drinking cup. They also, of course, have managed to handle the hairy math of creating a 3D illusion printed on 2D paper laminated in lenticular lens sheet and wrapped around an almost-cylinder. Part of me thinks it should not work - it’s just too many transforms from 3D to flat to cylinder. It’s as if they’ve created a perpetual motion machine or a time machine.

Unlike the perpetual motion machine and time machine, these things are real, they’re real cheap, and they’re real recyclable. Yes, these cups may appear to be wrapped in plastic, and they sort of are wrapped in plastic, but these are recyclable - unlike other lenticular cups. They even have a green statement on the page. Bravo.

I forgot to ask them if anyone has played the practical joke of creating a 3D virtual “mug handle” sticking out of the side of the cup.

EDIT - I stand corrected - the cups are made from polypropylene lens material with the printing directly on them - there is no paper, and the whole thing is recyclable. Slick.

Are the Tour de France sponsors taking notice of this? Tech blog Everything USB highlights a Japanese website offering a programmable device that you clamp onto the spokes of a bicycle wheel. When the wheel spins, a row of LED’s displays a rotating message for all to see.

Idea: At your next big offsite conference, schedule a bike rally for the attendees. Outfit them with rental bikes and have them ride through the city sporting these LED message boards. They get team-building and energy-building exercise and your company or organization gets splashy promotion. Throw in a charity contribution for everyone who rides and you have headlines, tax benefits, and a noteworthy “green” activity.

This devices is technically ready for purchase, but you’ll have to navigate a rather insane (to my American eyes) Japanese website that features bizarre videos of the product being demonstrated by a guy wearing a horse head mask to hide his identity. I guess. If you want to make your own, these are even better.