RT... Sound Showers... O2 to use old US military tech to shower the public with sound
By Katie Scott
14 March 12
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Technology originally developed by the US military is being deployed by O2 for a new campaign that will launch later this month.
But, says the agency behind the campaign, this is part of a wider revolution in "out-of-home" advertising that could see content accurately served to the public based on their emotional response within the next 12 months.
From 19 March, in select shopping centres, outside certain stores and in bus shelters nationwide, and in what is claimed to be a world first, members of the public will walk into "sound showers". These couple parametric arrays (mechanisms that give off low frequency sound) and electrostatic speakers to create pools of directional sound, which unsuspecting members of the public will wander into.
Meanwhile, when strolling past certain shops, people will again hear the new O2 tune picked for the campaign, as surface speaker technology will be used to turn shop windows into giant loudspeakers.
The installations are being created by Curb, the media company behind the living bacteria billboard for the film Contagion, crop circle ads for Shredded Wheat and a sand replica of Windsor Castle. The company has a "resource network" of academics and technical experts worldwide -- many of whom approached them with ideas of how new technologies could be used to create publicity stunts.
Prask Sutton, Curb's Head of Multisensory Innovation, acknowledges, however, that the technology used with this latest O2 campaign isn't new. In fact, the parametric arrays were originally developed by the US Navy and Soviet Navy for underwater sonar in the mid-1960s.
However, their use sees a move away from the visual to sound and scent as a way of engaging with the public whilst not intruding upon them, says Curb founder and CEO Anthony Ganjou. In fact, the Curb team had even pumped the smell of freshly cut grass into the meeting room during the briefing as this apparently evinces a sense of well-being.
These sensory suggestions, coupled with eye tracking technology, smile recognition ("gladvertising") and gender recognition, as used in the recent Curb-devised Plan UK charity campaign, will make for targeted campaigns that create "multiple emotional touchpoints". As Ganjou says: "You can make the message a million times more interesting by playing with the medium".
If you do wander into a sound shower later this month, please do let us know what you thought of the experience in the comments below.
Image credit: Shutterstock |
