DOOH Start-up iCleanse Pairs Smartphone Sanitizing Device With Ad Screen For Hospitals, Public Spaces

March 29, 2023 by Dave Haynes

A Hartford-area company is marketing a DOOH advertising solution that mashes up a screen paired with a device that uses UV-C light to sanitize phones, and rolls in a hand sanitizer dispenser beside it.

Called iCleanse, the company’s websites suggests it is in some 100 hospitals across the US, as well as public spaces like airports.

The pitch is that people can slip their smartphone into a slot on a pedestal or wall-mounted device that uses UV-C light to kill pathogens on the device within 15 seconds, without using any liquids or gels and without risking damage to the phone. While people wait, they can watch an ad spot.

This, of course, has been tried a few ways as a medium – with the closest versions of this being phone charging and storage locker devices that also had screens attached. A notable difference here is that charging and storage scenarios involve lengthy wait periods that probably involve the user walking off, as opposed to standing there and watching DOOH ads on a screen. With this, it’s 15 seconds. People don’t have time to wander off, or look elsewhere. The down side is that the dwell time – the duration of time people are in front of the screen – is very short, so there can’t be a long rotation of ads.

The device sanitizes smartphones, but it doesn’t clean them. E. Coli might get UV’d off, but the sticky goo from a cinnamon bun will still be there.

There’s not a particularly storied history of DOOH networks like this, but these are different times from when earlier versions popped up. DOOH is now a recognized, widely-planned and placed medium – which was arguably not the case five years ago and certainly 10 or more years ago. So there are dollars routinely allocated to the medium now. And the COVID era has much of the population much more vigilant and careful about what’s on surfaces.