The SCREENS.tv Blog

Going Underground (0)

 

After a short time away from England's capital city, I recently endured – sorry, enjoyed a journey on the London Underground, in which I saw screen media applied to two very different locations. One was display ad style, a billboard screen in a corridor which had great clarity and you could see from some distance.

Well, you could have, if the corridor hadn't been short, narrow and filled with commuters.

The other screens were down the side of escalators, which is an altogether more sensible application as the majority of the audience is relatively captive, though in constant motion.

The screen in the corridor really did look great. I don't think the problem was with the screen, as such, rather it's with the advertising itself. See, no-one will stop and read something in that corridor. That's not how tube advertising works. You needs six or seven adverts, and as a consumer passes, they take a small amount of information from each one until they eventually form a complete picture. So advertising on a single screen, even a large one, needs to adjust to hit the maximum number of people in an incredibly short space of time. Information in this space needs to be in very short bursts and easy to digest, because even off-peak travelers do not want to hang around in tube stations.

Back to the escalators. It's a wonderful idea, having screen media down the sides of escalators, and I have no doubt it will succeed – but again, it's the advertising that has to change to get the best from this media. It needs huge imagination and genuine creativity to work in this space. People look around, attention wanders – yet you have screens capable of dominating their space far more than a traditional screen advert. Why?

Because the screens are on both sides of the escalators. Imagine around Wimbledon time, you could have Federer on the right hand side against Roddick on the left – and with customers following the movements, you have total engagement with the static (but obviously still moving) traveler to a whole new extent. Ads could easily use animation to run up and down the line of screens, to really make us want to turn and watch. Or the screens could be used in, say, sets of four, with miniature versions of dynamic ads running in them, right along their length – after all, on escalators there are also safety concerns with people turning and watching ads when they should be stepping off the end.

It's just a thought. If the advertising changes to embrace the platform, tube advertising is going to be incredibly effective – but it will take one bold advertiser and one excellent agency to harness its potential.

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