German OOH Media Player Goes Really Big In Hamburg

May 17, 2012 by Dave Haynes

The German OOH media company Ströer Group seems to get one of the big fundamentals about putting digital display in big spaces: go big or go home.

The company has installed massive LCD arrays, measuring 24 and 16 square metres, at the Hamburg and Düsseldorf central rail stations. Ströer says the Hamburg Central Station is the busiest railway station in Germany, and 150,000 people pass the two LCD screens at the southern footbridge every day.

I like this because of the sheer scale, which works both for pure impact and sightlines. The audience is moving, so being big means the marketing messages can start being seen from well off. The Hamburg site, in particular, has a huge daily audience, but that would not guarantee most or many are looking if the displays are not at a size that demanded attention.

The other pedestrian, but important, element here is that clock in the middle. Whether they are rushing to a train or heading to work, people in that dynamic will be thinking about the time. It’s sticky content and it will make people look up, boosting recall on the ads.

A couple of other interesting aspects of this are how the bezels are thin enough on these LCDs to pretty much make the seams disappear, and how all the displays are clustered in portrait mode. It seems like clusters in landscape are far more typical. Using LCD is a lot more possible than at many public spaces because there appears to a solid roof, as opposed to glass atrium ceiling that would see sunlight washing out the colors.