Pop-Media
Most shoppers have noticed the growth of the number of screens with information, advertising and contextual clips in all kinds of location. Rich media and indoor channels. The Gatwick Express, that takes travelers arriving at Heathrow Airport to central London at premium prices, has been running a steady service for many years with clips about nature, hot air ballooning, whales and sailing that help to create a very calm and soothing environment on the train. The service is completed with a 5 minute clip from BBC news in the morning and late afternoon with the current headlines, much valued by business travelers. It has been the most successful means of transportation to reach the capital, in spite of its premium price.
The entertainment industry has known for a long time the significant impact a screen has on the number of units sold of a certain movie or music clip when placed at the point of purchase. These have consisted of low cost units with a tape that had to be rewound every hour, many times forgotten as it finished. Today retailers have taken on board the full benefits that technology has to offer, and now remotely managed channels, permanently streaming images, messages and advertising, are seen as the perfect companion to a technological sophisticated floor design in any industry or retail segment.
These new powerful formats are having a great impact in the advertising industry. Total spending in the United States on advertising of all types is around $250 billion per year. This spending is spread across a plethora of identified channels, and no single channel accounts for as much as 10% of the total spending. As an example, the U.S. retail industry spends over $5 billion annually on printed promotional signage and graphics alone. Indoor media channels are the new powerfull segment, based on the digital delivery of visual content through a network of displays in an out-of-home setting, centrally managed and controlled.
According to researchers (Double Click, Jupiter Media, Zenith Optimedia and others), European companies spent €230 million in 2005 in rich media alone. The growth of the segment is estimated to reach €1.8 billion by 2010 in Europe. Analysts for the major part agree that traditional TV advertising reached a peak in 2004 and has been declining ever since in favor of new media and online advertising.
