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Outdoor Interaction Overseas

I love hearing about outdoor ad campaigns that use technologies such as Bluetooth and GPS to lure consumers into interacting with brands on a deeper level than your average billboard or poster.

But unless you're walking around Times Square, don't expect to find many stateside. For the majority of these technologically innovative campaigns are found overseas.

Given the breadth of foreign campaigns, it's only a matter of time before we see bus shelters ask for our opinion and GPS-enabled buses serving ads to highlight local neighborhood businesses. Here's a look into the future:

Initiative Media in Sydney, Australia, launched an outdoor campaign for Emirates Airlines using JCDecaux's Opinionator, a voting mechanism found on such street advertising venues as bus shelter panels.

The "Favourite European Destination" campaign touted the 20 European destinations that Emirates flies to with an ad featuring a clickable map of Europe allowing consumers to vote for their favorite destination. Ads were placed in high-trafficked areas with a running tally of up-to-date results displayed.

Three panels were placed in Sydney, two in Melbourne and one in Brisbane. In a mere one-week period, more than 93,000 votes were cast, surpassing a previous Opinionator campaign by 10,000 votes.

Location, location, location differed in each city. Moscow was the favorite choice in Sydney. Melbourne residents loved Paris, while Milan took the top spot in Brisbane.

The campaign "was an ideal opportunity to engage with consumers and to educate them on Emirates' extensive European destination network," said Mark Griffiths, media director at Initiative.

Yell.com, a U.K. search engine, interacted with Londoners through a series of outdoor ads and GPS-equipped buses. Twenty-five buses contained GPS tracking capabilities and served ads to bus shelters that were relevant to the neighborhood and highlighted local businesses.

The bus shelters showed passersby a map of where they were standing. An interactive screen in the poster let people search for businesses, restaurants and bars within walking distance or within the next bus stop. AKQA created the campaign.

How long do you think will it take for campaigns such as these to make their way to the U.S.? Post your estimations on the Media Creativity blog.

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