Everyone has heard of New York’s Times Square or has at least seen a similar place from Japan, Hong Kong, or UK in movies. Commercial centres like the Times Square look like a sight from the future with screens and digital billboards taking centre stage, displaying ads and slides, bringing the whole place to life with thousands of digital billboards.
ActiveMedia, a leading activation agency, is now bringing similar digital revolution to Lahore’s M.M. Alam road. By utilising the abundant advertising potential at one of the busiest avenues of Punjab’s capital, ActiveMedia will colour the road with LED Streamers (LED screens) over a 1,500 metre distance.
Aside from being pleasant on the eyes and adding colour to the dull city centres, digital outdoor advertising holds great importance for businesses. Studies suggest that Digital out-of-home (DOOH) advertising, also known as digital signage, is going to eclipse all advertising media channels very soon.
Being a tech-driven medium, DOOH advertising is a close relative of online and mobile advertising. However, it can reach users offline and is more innovative and flexible in how it can be utilised.
Automation of dynamic and contextual advertising is one of the strengths of DOOH marketing. Content can be changed on the go depending the time of day, occasion, weather or even live data feeds.
Trends suggest that in the very near future, DOOH advertising will become the go-to platform for advertising. Some probable reasons for DOOH advertising taking centre stage are:
M.M. Alam road is the commercial, entertainment and shopping hub of Lahore. Being at the centre of a city with a population of over 15 million, a huge number of people visit or pass through the area. The area is home to businesses from all categories resulting in visitors from all age groups.
An average of 15,000 to 36,000 cars commute using the M.M. Alam road. A DOOH advertising platform in the area could reach up to 850,000 people and have over 4.5 million impacts, according to research based statistics from ActiveMedia.
The initiative from ActiveMedia, will an industry first. It is amongst the first steps in making a Digital Lahore. The projects is being called “Illuminating MM Alam Road” which describes the task in its full essence.
Lahore, or even Pakistan, is still stuck in the last century and adoption for digital marketing and content has been rather slow. As far as the centuries old city is concerned, it is getting its first wide scale DOOH advertising platform which will bring colours to the city bring it up to the 21st century.
This is only a start and as the medium gets adopted, these LED screens will make the cities smarter and technologically advanced. Other than being an outdoor advertising platform, this could have several other potential uses or it could even turn into a Times Square like tourist attraction.
