• by Ken Liebeskind , May 13, 2002

Ah, innovation! Outdoor advertising was once just static billboards. Last year saw the arrival of audio/video display screens at bus shelters. Now outdoor ads at phone kiosks are beaming electronic signals with additional ad content to Palm handheld devices.

That’s what Viacom-owned Simon & Schuster is doing to promote the new Stephen King book, Everything’s Eventual, in New York City. This April, 150 phone kiosks in Manhattan with flashing red lights started beaming excerpts of the book to Palm owners.

Streetbeam, a New York company, developed the technology for the ad and is working with Viacom Outdoor, which sells the program and places the advertising. Its main partner is Verizon, which owns the phone kiosks.

Streetbeam launched more than a year ago with a campaign for Banana Republic and has since done campaigns for American Express, Sotheby’s, Morgan Stanley, and the San Francisco Opera.

Blinking red lights on outdoor print ads communicate with Palm devices, which receive the ads when they are pointed at the lights. Users get a message that they’re receiving data, and five to 10 seconds later a transfer occurs. If users accept it, the advertising message pops up. It can be anything from a schedule of opera performances to an excerpt of the King book, which Simon & Schuster knows will stimulate interest, since it has had success in the past offering downloads of excerpts.

So far Streetbeam is a limited local advertising opportunity that’s been used only in New York and San Francisco. Only cities with high Palm penetration are viable; San Francisco is the highest because of its tech-savvy population, with New York close behind, according to Allan Bressler, Streetbeam’s chief operating officer. Palm penetration in San Francisco is about 20 percent, he says. Tests have also been done in London and Atlanta.

Advertisers can buy Streetbeam as part of an outdoor package that also includes traditional outdoor ads. There is a surcharge for the Palm application, according to Jodi Senese, executive vice president at Viacom Outdoor. She says clients have had success with it, some tracking the number of beams and hits, although she couldn’t provide figures. "It goes beyond the typical reach and frequency to give consumers something more. You get all the benefits of outdoor and enhance it with instant messaging."

Simon & Schuster is promoting Everything’s Eventual in-store and with print, radio, and movie theater slides. It’s using Streetbeam because "Stephen King is always pushing the envelope. It’s a challenge to keep up with his creative efforts to market his books," says Adam Rothberg, an S&S spokesman. King made waves with the first big e-book, Riding the Bullet, in 2000. Everything’s Eventual isn’t an e-book, but it’s using a new form of electronic promotion to stimulate demand for the hardcover.