Moving Image Advertising in London

London is terrible (we all know that). What I’ve noticed for a while, and which was brought to my attention again yesterday is that the advertising on its tube has taken on evil proportions - it now increasingly uses moving image.

After googling a bit, I found that the digital posters and panels featuring moving image ads are provided by CBS Outdoor Limited. The digital posters are basically to replace the regular framed posters that are panelled along the escalators.

So, instead of loads of different posters that you can look at or not, there is now a long, seducing row of moving image, often ‘creatively’ displayed across more than one panel (for instance, you can have a car ‘drive up’ through the different frames). It’s insidious!

Some spin from CBS Outdoor Limited here:

London’s commuters have been enthralled by Viacom Outdoor’s ground-breaking Digital Escalator Panels (D-EPs) at Tottenham Court Road Tube station.

Research initiated by Viacom Outdoor after the launch of the digital posters, has found 80% of Londoners thought the advertising carried on the sites was enjoyable to look at and 61% said it made their journey through the station more pleasurable.

I’m so glad that my daily commute is now a short drive along the Firth of Forth, passing a couple of billboards on the way (one was about visiting Norway, and featured a gorgeous view down some Norwegian fjord). The London Underground, on the other hand, really succeeds in giving you a thoroughly dehumanizing experience, and the new digital posters (EVERYWHERE) and other planned digital projections (EVERYWHERE) will make things even more polluted.