China’s Growth in Out-of-Home Media Seen Across All Consumer Touchpoints
With just over 1.3 billion people, China is the world’s largest and most populous country, it is also home to the world’s largest out-of-home digital signage networks. China is a country on the move, from mass transportation systems to elevators to hotels and shopping malls, out-of-home media has experienced tremendous growth in a country where only one household in three currently owns a television.

If you’re attending the Beijing Olympics your first exposure to digital signage will likely happen at the Beijing Capital International Airport, Terminal 3. Terminal 3 was constructed to handle international arrivals and departures for the 2008 Summer Games and is the primary hub for Air China, Lufthansa, American Airlines, Air Canada, and British Airways. The terminal is expected to handle more than 43 million passengers per year with the addition of 120 gates. Air travel in China is currently growing at a rate of 10% annually, with 131 million inbound travelers in 2007. Growth in tourism and rising domestic incomes are expected to increase air travel to more than 200 million travelers in 2008. The government has announced plans to build 100 additional airports by 2020. It is with this background that Airmedia Group has become one of the major players in China’s digital signage marketplace.

Airmedia operates of the largest digital media network in China dedicated to the air travel industry. Airmedia currently has the concession rights to operate signage systems in 52 airports across China, including China’s five largest airports. In addition to operating digital signage networks, Airmedia offers advertisers other media platforms that include light boxes, 3D Displays, and 360-degree LED displays. It also places media on inflight screens on the routes of 9 Chinese airlines giving Airmedia more than 16,000 screens inflight. The length of AirMedia’s in-flight programing typically ranges from approximately 45 minutes to an hour per flight, approximately 5 to 16 minutes of which consist of advertising content.

At the Beijing Capital International Airport more than Five hundred thirty-eight digital signage displays have been installed with the help of several key suppliers. A major portion of Airmedia’s system uses DT Research’s WebDT Signage System that includes industrial-grade signage hardware, content management software, and device management software. Using the WebDT Signage System enables the delivery of dynamic advertising, information, news, and training that can be displayed in up to eight zones on each screen. Content scheduling and playback are all controlled remotely via secure wireless media players. Additional LCD panel suppliers also included Samsung, Haier, and HPC International.

Airmedia Group has grown through several key acquisitions and partnerships, in July it acquired Excel Lead International and Flying Dragon Media Advertising. The acquisitions diversified Airmedia’s offerings to include advertising on gate bridges in 10 airports in mainland China. Airmedia announced a strategic partnership with the WingsMedia, a division of Shanghai Media Group, one of the largest media companies in China to provide content for Airmedia’s network. AirMedia obtained the exclusive right to show selected news, theme programs, and documentary clips provided by SMG in airports and on airplanes from March 2008 to February 2010. AirMedia’s standard programs in airports currently include 25 minutes of advertising content and 35 minutes of non-advertising content during each hour of programming, and are shown for approximately 16 hours per day.

Business Media China (BMC), one of the largest media placement agencies in China reported that almost all of its inventory has been sold out at Terminal 3 through the end of 2010. Advertisers include Samsung, Coca-Cola, and Ferrari. BMC is also working with Zeno Global, a company holding a patent on a new kind of light box advertising. Based on a phenomenon known as “persistence of vision”, advertisements appears to move when passengers approach the panels from any direction, they see a sequence of moving images that react to each person individually. If a viewer stops, the image stops. If a viewer’s head moves back and forth, the image corresponds. Content can be sourced from film, video or computer animation, including TV commercials. Advertisers supply Zeno with a short video clip which Zeno converts to an encoded, 2D poster using proprietary software. Examples of image sequences might include car companies showing their products from different sides and changing the color of the car.

Through a combination of growth and acquisition, Focus Media has become the largest out-of-home provider in China with a broad portfolio of advertising platforms. Their portfolio includes more than 200 outdoor LED displays in Shanghai and more than 112,000 flat-panel displays in high-traffic areas, such as elevators, hotels, and shopping malls in over 90 cities across China. An in-store network with more than 50,000 flat-panel displays in approximately 4,000 hypermarkets, supermarkets, and convenience stores was established in 2005. In 2007 Focus Media acquired CGEN Digital Media expanding its in-store digital advertising network to large chain stores across China.

5.6 million people use the Shanghai Metro on a daily basis and view more than 4,237 flat-panel public information displays (PIDS) across 4 subway lines and 85 stations. The system includes platform-based and train-based displays and was developed and managed by Digital Media Group (DMG). DMG operates signage systems in six urban areas including Hong Kong with 308 displays on 11 subway trains. Programming includes news, weather, community and transportation updates. DMG has recently formed a partnership with New Media Information Communications Ltd. to operate more than 800 high-tech plasma displays at bus stops across Shanghai increasing DMGs reach to include more than 5 million additional passengers above ground.

The Hong Kong Airport Express is a high-speed rail link that runs between Hong Kong International Airport and Hong Kong’s Central business district. The 28-minute trip includes information and entertainment programs that reach more than 10.2 million passengers per year from The Elite Channel using 23-inch LCD monitors.

According to a study conducted by CTR Market Research (CTR) in September 2007, over 25 million trips were taken daily on public buses with digital television displays in China. VisionChina Media operates one of the largest out-of-home advertising networks using real-time mobile digital television broadcasts to deliver content and advertising on mass transportation systems in China. The company’s network consists of over 33,000 digital TV displays reaching 14 of China’s most affluent cities The company’s network offers the ability to deliver real-time, location-specific news, stock quotes, weather and traffic updates, sports highlights, and entertainment programs.

You would think the modern Olympics were actually designed as venue for a multi—media digital platform rather than a live event to be attended. Even in my early Olympic viewing days, Jim McKay was poised in front of multiple screens, jumping from one venue to another, and providing the back stories that we all need in order to empathize with athletes we’d never see or hear about in the intervening years. I relish finding out who the hot new kayakers are.

With only a couple of days to the Beijing Olympics ‘08, many are wondering about what digital signage implementations will be used in the Olympic venues and around the Beijing stadium. We won’t be going to Beijing this year.