The Gadget Show Street Marketing Campaign with Suzi Perry in Manchester

On Monday 12 July the public were invited to interact with Suzi Perry from Five’s The Gadget Show, as the first presenter challenge from the upcoming series went live at Manchester’s busy Piccadilly Gardens bus station. For the first time, Augmented Reality was available on the streets of Manchester.  Suzi was there in person, filming and playing with the technology. A5 cards were distributed at the Augmented Reality poster site, and the public were able to hold their very own ‘virtual Suzi’ in the palm of their hand.

In a bid to engage Manchester with the convergence of technologies such as proximity marketing, social gaming and augmented reality, the campaign built up from around the city, encouraging passers-by to turn on their Bluetooth and tune into tech…

Interactive posters at bus shelters, digital games on poster sites, a Gadget Show ‘studio’ at a bus stop and a giant 2D image of Suzi Perry towering over the city were among the futuristic techniques deployed by Outdoor market leader JCDecaux to turn Manchester’s Piccadilly Gardens into a Gadget Show Zone. In a UK first, ‘Augmented Reality’ posters created a ‘virtual’ Suzi Perry, using technology from Total Immersion and Hidden Creative.

Sam Bird, Director of Creative Solutions at JCDecaux said, “Outdoor advertising suits the way we live our lives today – because we spend 53% more time out of home now than we did 14 years ago, commuting for longer and socialising more. As this showcase demonstrates, advances in technology have brought Outdoor closer to the world of “The Minority Report’ with the advent of interactive posters and cutting-edge technology such as ‘Augmented Reality’.”

Matthew Trubow, Marketing Director of Hidden Creative said, “We are delighted to receive this opportunity to work with Five and The Gadget Show as we continue to enhance Hidden’s portfolio within broadcasting and publishing sectors. This has been an exciting project from start to finish and we are pleased to have achieved a polished end result with a fantastic group effort from the people at Five’s The Gadget Show and JCDecaux”.

The campaign was extended with an online feature, so that those who couldn’t make it or wanted to share the experience with others were able to do so. The results of the challenge will be revealed in the first episode of The Gadget Show’s new series on Monday August 2nd 2010.

Source and more pictures here.

Hidden Creative augments Augmenting The Great Outdoors – With Channel Five, The Gadget Show, T3 Magazine & JCDecaux.

Total Immersion’s partner Hidden Creative has developed an interactive augmented reality experience for Channel Five’s The Gadget Show after the hugely popular AR presentations at the Gadget Show Live at the NEC Birmingham earlier this year. The Gadget Show gives the mass consumer an insight into gadgets and technology, whilst providing substantial information to engage a tech-savvy audience. The result is an accessible future-tech production and it is now in its 13th series on Channel Five.

A recurring theme in the show is a weekly challenge between presenters Jason Bradbury and Suzi Perry set around demonstrating new technologies and exploring the success of their applications. Hidden join Suzi’s team for the presenter’s latest challenge in which she is testing traditional outdoor advertising methods in collaboration with JCDecaux, whilst Jason explores online marketing communications and social media engagement.

JCDecaux is a revolutionary advertising corporation, the second largest in its sector. They are the only company specialising exclusively in out-of-home advertising, with a dominant presence in billboards, transport, street furniture and digital. Given that they have 936,000 advertising panels in 55 companies worldwide, 2008 revenue of 2,168.6 million Euros and are responsible for revolutionising the ‘Street Furniture’ concept, they were the ideal partner on this project.

The Gadget show have transformed a Manchester bus shelter in Piccadilly Gardens featuring the Gadget Show’s distinctive red sofa and a large screen which displays Hidden Creative’s augmented experience. The interactive augmentation features Suzi revealing details of the new series and will be activated by A5 cards distributed on site. T3 magazine, another authority in gadgets and new technology, will also be printing an A4 ad containing the marker to trigger the experience online via a webcam at the Channel Five website. http://fwd.five.tv/adv/virtual-suzi,

Next to digital, the outdoor advertising segment has been the most dynamic in recent years, capturing market share from television, radio and newspaper. The adoption of digital technology has drastically driven growth in the outdoor segment, combining the traditional strengths of outdoor with strategically targeted opportunities.

The project aims to prove that whilst online communications and social media are no doubt powerful marketing tools, physical interactions create a memorable impact which stays with the consumer. Augmented reality combines the best characteristics of digital and physical channels, increases interaction and ensures a lasting impression, thus making it the foreseeable solution in developing the growing relationship between outdoor advertising and digital engagement.

TI on TV : Channel 5’s Gadget Show visiting Total Immersion Booth @ Gadget Live Show

Gadget Show Team visited our booth @ Gadget Live Show 2010 ! Here is the report.