Projects: Digital Drives Happier Holiday Travel At Toronto’s Pearson Airport

December 28, 2015 by Dave Haynes

Traveling through airports during the Christmas holiday period can suck the joy out of just about anyone – between line-ups, delays, many more rookie travellers  than normal and general mayhem. So the people at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport put together an on-premise Happier Holidays campaign that uses temporary digital displays, among several tools, to inject some fun.

The Greater Toronto Airport Authority’s “Santa at Pearson” campaign had branded interactive touch screens and way-finding displays in both of the airport’s main terminals – the deployment and content put together in a partnership between temporary digital specialists BIG Digital and experiential event marketers Black Chalk Marketing.

Along with other more traditional holiday themed games and activities available, BIG and Black Chalk provided an interactive experience where travellers can ‘Talk To Santa’ via video conference from the North Pole. Users could approach the display and, with the touch of a button, be connected to Santa before boarding their flights home for the holiday. When Santa was either busy with another kid or outside of his hours, a holiday match game was available to keep the kids busy while waiting for flights. Spots for the GTAA “Santa at Pearson” campaign were also shown in the playlist schedule

The airport also set up digital totems that did things like make travellers aware wrapped gifts were not getting through security screening, but free gift wrapping was available post-security.