ScreenMedia

New York’s Columbus Circle Subway Comes to Life with 64-Foot Interactive Digital Signage Wall. — Play. It’s good for you. That’s the message stressed in Beneful Brand Dogfood’s new integrated brand campaign, which includes TV, online, and Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH) elements. The work culminates this week with the May 1st launch of five interactive dog parks in cities around the country, including a 64-foot digital interactive wall and massive vinyl display in New York’s Columbus Circle subway station. 

The Play campaign was created by Fallon Minneapolis, Beneful’s Agency of Record. The agency launched Beneful’s first ever brand “Anthem” in mid-March. The commercial, told from the perspective of a dog at play, was followed shortly by a series of spots centered on Beneful’s dog food and new line of dog snacks. All of the work in the campaign focuses on the importance of play to dogs and owners—encouraging pet owners to be happier by making time for play.


Benetton’s Live Windows project created by Fabrica took home a Gold APEX Award in the Retail category at Digital Signage Expo’s 3rd Annual APEX Awards held on March 8th at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

Benetton, a fashion retailer with more than 6400 stores in over 120 countries, is known for taking chances with their marketing. The company has a knack for attracting attention to itself by focusing their campaigns on civic, social, and political themes that almost never include any actual products. For example, Benetton’s latest “Unhate” campaign uses a series of provocative, altered images of world leaders kissing each other on the lips. When Benetton decided to find a new way to attract attention to their retail stores, they combined digital signage video walls with interactive technologies that encouraged shoppers and passersby to engage in playful experimentation using their own images.

The Benetton Live Windows project was created by Alfio Pozzoni, Creative Director and Special Projects Manager at Fabrica, Benetton’s internal communication division in Italy. To create original content for the project, Fabrica invited several prestigious design schools from around the world, that included Elisava in Barcelona, Parson’s in Paris, and Hyper Island in Stockholm, offering an opportunity for their students to gain visibility and exposure through the project. The final result generated a broad range of animation and images that were also combined with user-generated content from shoppers for a truly interactive experience.

Digital Signage Expo Announces APEX Award Winners — Three standout examples from this year’s APEX Award entries include an interactive media installation for the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery (pictured above) created by Zebra Dog, a Wisconsin-based visual branding and multimedia design firm, which took top honors winning both a Gold APEX Award in the Education and Healthcare category as well as being honored with Digital Signage Expo’s first APEX of the Year Award. Benetton’s Live Windows project created by Fabrica took home a Gold APEX Award in the Retail category, and finally Sun Life Financial won an APEX Gold Award for the Sun Life Financial BuzzWall™ created by Arsenal Media.

Vogue’s London Fashion Week Commentary Goes Outdoors Using Digital Signage Billboard. London Fashion Week draws more than 5000 visitors from all over the world that include buyers, TV and radio crews, journalists and photographers to see 59 catwalk shows and 24 presentations that take place over 6 days. The direct value of the UK fashion industry to the UK economy  is £21 billion. Designer labels such as Mulberry, Burberry and Alexander McQueen’s new diffusion line McQ will be featured across the week along event with highlights of the show’s more than ten other top designers including Paul Smith, Jonathan Saunders, Matthew Williamson, Mary Katrantzou, Roksanda Ilincic, Meadham Kirchhoff and James Long.

A new features at Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario is a dynamic digital signage media wall located in the Stephen Hawking Centre’s lobby which welcomes and informs visitors.

Timberland has just launched a new store concept in select locations in England, Singapore, and the United States to test interactive touch points and there ability to create more meaningful connections with consumers.

 Timberland’s interactive store concept was developed as a collaboration between Apologue Experience Design, which provided concept development, strategy, creative direction and production; Automata Studios providing additional art direction and interface design; Iron Claw providing custom software development, and Audio, Video & Controls providing system design and technology integration. Together they designed a custom, open-source, cloud-based, HTML5-based information system that is able to dynamically retrieve remote data while creating real- time, uniquely generated stories that are distributed to multiple digital touchpoints across every store, and to every Timberland location around the world. The systems allows Timberland to add and tag assets for immediate integration all while being managed and monitored from a central location.

The Peep Show Returns to New York’s Times Square Using Interactive Digital Signage. How do you cut through the noise and clutter of New York’s Times Square? Well, the folks at Devito/Verdi, a New York-based advertising agency found a unique way to do just that using interactive digital signage. Devito/Verdi was looking for a creative way to help their client, Daffys, a retail fashion discounter attract New York fashionistas to the opening of a new location of in Times Square. Daffy’s advertising campaign shows consumers what an 80% off discount really looks like. To demonstrate it they combined vivacious, scantily clad models with interactive digital signage. Pedestrians start the Peep Show by placing the palm of their hand on a motion sensor connected to the street-level window display. The digital curtain rises and the fun begins, revealing what they look like with only 20% of their clothing left on. Yes folks, the striptease is back! 

Intel showed off a new interactive prototype at the National Retail Federation being held at New York’s Javits Center.  The prototype is by a collaboration with Inwindow Outdoor, an interactive digital out-of-home advertising company that has developed streel-level storefront interactive advertising campaigns for American Express, HBO, Ford, HP, Microsoft and NBC. The Intel/Inwindow Outdoor prototype is called the “Experience Stations” and it’s capable of interacting with users in several ways. The prototype incorporates a large-format 70-inch touchscreen displays that responds to multi-touch inputs. They have also added near field communication (NFC) capability for two-way transactions with mobile devices; and there’s a 3D cameras that enables users to interact with the system using gesture-based input.

Lady Gaga Fans Got an Interactive Holiday Experience Thanks to Barneys NY. Barneys New York Flagship store on Madison Avenue has unveiled a new interactive holiday window that provides fans of Lady Gaga with the opportunity to send holiday wishes via Twitter from their smartphone and see their messages displayed on screen. The window uses Prysm’s laser phosphor display to promote Lady Gaga’s Holiday Workshop, an exclusive holiday promotion at Barneys which features a range of special editions items designed by  Lady Gaga and stylist Nicola Formichetti. Mr. Formichetti is the designer responsible for Lady Gaga’s theatrical costumes that fans have come to identify with the star. Lady Gaga’s Holiday Workshop takes up an entire floor at Barneys and includes several three dimensional sculptures along with Gaga-inspired products. Barneys will donate 25% of the total holiday sales to Lady Gaga’s anti-bullying Foundation.