Thursday, June 25, 2009

Subway in Tunnel Advertising gives Indian Outdoor a new direction


Now you see it, now you don’t! when you ride in a subway metro car, gazing out the window, suddenly, like a hallucination, an animated advertising scene flashes outside your window as soon as the metro-train crosses a tunnel. It’s not your imagination. Outdoor advertising in India has found a new print direction -- subway in-tunnel advertising. Encyclomedia gives India’s first ever fully exploited tunnel advertising.


Intro:

It is common experience for most of us traveling in a lift or bus or a train to stare out of the window, at nothing. In a confined space, where people are forced to concede personal spaces, their discomfort makes them avoid looking at each other. Capitalizing on this fact Encyclomedia once again comes out with a media first- a cracker of an innovation for Sprite Xpress, the new 350ML packaging initiative of Coca Cola India this time around with the collaboration with Delhi based Sub Media India.

The Story:

After a successful outdoor campaign for the launch of Sprite Xpress, Encyclomedia & Submedia India have executed this innovation for the brand in the Delhi Metro. The dark tunnel where the train passes through is where this innovation took place. The technology consists of two sets of processes – one a specially designed display box, which houses the images, frame-by-frame placed next to one another; and -the other process consists of changing images in such a manner that when installed in the displays and watched by a moving audience, they appear moving without any blur or distortions.

As. A. Rabindranath, CEO, Sub Media India, explains the technology and its origin, he says, “Our displays boards in the tunnel requires a 1 meter by 1 half meter of print, which gets magnified up-to 8 times when viewed from a distant in a compartment of a moving metro-train. The concept of in-tunnel advertising was inspired by a Zoetrope- a 19th –Century optical toy that spun a picture inside a circular frame.”

“It’s a natural environment for our kind of advertising, because you have a captive

audience of thousands of passengers who are looking for something to do. Our light boxes captivate their attention. And the really good part is that there are more city-transit riders each year. Now Instead of sitting in a theater or at home watching images projected on a screen, subway passengers can move past display boxes and see a brief commercial “ adds, Rabindranath.

Under-standing the process

The design of the boxes incorporates variables like speed of the train, distance of the viewers etc. The ‘software’ consists of modifying the images in manner consistent with the above variables. Both of these together, along with the moving audience creates the ‘motion picture’ effect. This technology usually plays Television commercial films but Encyclomedia took this innovation to another level when they designed and rendered a 15 second animation for Sprite Xpress which had the new and improved 350ML bottle doing all sorts of outdoor sports such as skate boarding , surfing etc.


This animation was then broken frame by frame thereby making 280 frames which was then used for the described innovation. This being achieved, when the train passed through the tunnel, the people inside the train could see a short animation film on the walls of the tunnel which had the new and improved 350ML bottle skate boarding, surfing and breaking through glass panels.

Coca-cola official, says, "The Coca-Cola Company has used the in-tunnel advertising medium in different parts of the world to great effect. This is a powerful graphic medium targeting scores of captive passengers in an innovative manner. The Delhi Metro activity between the Kashmiri Gate and Chandni Chowk station has successfully helped us reinforce the on-the-go functionality of the Sprite Xpress Pack in an impactful and interesting manner."


Mukesh Manik, M-I-C, Encyclomedia Networks, says, “The media is very powerful and running a TVC on it would dilute the potential impact that this medium can create. We created a customized content for this media and the results are beyond expectations. The captive audience is entertained and the recall levels are very high.”

With tunnel advertising medium coming into being, and transit authorities in the capital becoming comfortable, the process has given a new meaning to the “light at the end of the tunnel.” Sign display media has found a new home.

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