Another Subway, Another Wind-blown Hair Model

October 2, 2018 by Dave Haynes

As the saying goes, everything old is new again.

In this case, we have the Montreal-based out of home media company Astral doing a campaign in the subway system that updates an idea that first (maybe) surfaced a few years ago in the Stockholm subway.

In both cases, a video on a digital screen or screens has a model’s hair virtually blown by the winds that get pushed into a subway platform when a train arrives. In this case, it is for the beauty brand TRESemmé and uses a video wall and two Arduino sensors that the agency says measure the wind speed, triggering a file that has the model’s perfect hair blown askew. I have my doubts the media really changes based on different wind speeds, but simply reacts to an approaching train. Windy is windy.

The brand ran the set-up in two central district stations, to promote the strength of its new range of hairspray.

It was clever in Sweden and clever here, though one could make the argument no one is looking at that video wall when a train is coming into a station. Just saying.

Hat tip to @ayudasystems for making me aware of this, via Twitter

  1. Paul says:

    Dave

    We did something similar here in NYC a few years ago with the producers of the Marilyn Monroe Biopic. Working with Intersection’s OTG kiosk platform, they recreated the infamous subway grate scene from the “7 Year Itch” for the creative. The ad was was triggered by the sound of the train entering the station, which then set in motion Marilyn’s skirt blowing in the wind as she tried to control it. One of the more cooler ads run on the kiosks.

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