Written by: David Leo and Alma Escudero
Nowadays, people commonly see an average of 4000 ads every single day, this includes those admittedly rather annoying pop-up ads you see on websites and the billboard on the street. Due to this, the attention and interest people give them decrease drastically, now they rather skip, use extension blockers or multitasking to avoid seeing them in any of their forms.
Digital advertising is in crisis, with multiple forces rapidly compromising the effectiveness of standard digital methods and confusion surrounding the future. From rising CPC (cost-per-click) prices to diminishing audience engagement and the death of the tracking cookie, problems are mounting for online advertisers.
Three-dimensional billboards are a creative immersion experience, where an experience puts aside the passiveness of a conventional billboard ad. Even though these billboards are not necessarily three-dimensional but more like “anamorphic” which means that pictures rely on purpose to create a perspective. With three-dimensional technology, you create optical illusions that force your eyes to believe something is real when it is not and give the customer the greatest experience like in real-life objects.
3D advertising could hold the solution, providing completely new ways to reach customers—ways that could make some older methods obsolete.
HOW DOES A 3D BILLBOARD WORK?
All of us wonder how 3D is capable of adding those effects and leaving us mesmerized! 3D artwork is all about textures, just like projectiles and holograms in 3D movies. A three-dimensional advertisement seems to draw more attention from viewers, and it appears to transcend the billboard itself. As a result, the viewer’s eye needs to make a slight movement that requires a bit more engagement and attention. For that reason, these ads are easy to recall.
The three main texture methods for producing 3D are optical illusions, physically altered billboards, and transparent or framed billboards.
- Optical Illusion: Art images created by optical illusions use specific art styles that fool people’s perception of depth. Since no additional pieces are attached to the billboard canvases, these 3D advertisements are cheap and affordable.
- Physically Altered Billboards: These physical billboards utilize extra parts that are hung or spring from the actual ads or hanging from the actual billboards.
- Transparent or framed billboards: Transparent or framed billboards interact with the environment by providing a window that customers can see into. However, the canvas transparency gives a 3D effect even though there is no change in the shape of the billboard.
When these elements are combined and viewed by the human eye, this produces the illusion of a 3D image. By making the decision to combine content, OOH, and 3D effects, brands are able to provide audiences with a captivating experience, but they also ensure that their message is highly memorable.
BENEFITS OF 3D ADVERTISING
3D OOH Advertising can provide the same types of benefits as compared to traditional advertising campaigns including the reach and brand awareness that can be delivered but 3D advertising amplifies these benefits immensely.
Another noticeable benefit for 3D OOH advertising is that the engagement and interactivity with these ads are higher than all other traditional modes of engagement.
Ford’s recent campaign to promote their Maverick trucks is a great example of the growth of engaging 3D ads. In an attempt to reach younger truck buyers, the auto giant created an AR TikTok campaign that allowed users to shrink 3D models of the Maverick truck and add them to their smartphone feed. The campaign was launched in June 2021 and in less than a month the campaign saw TikTokers create just over 17,000 videos in under a month.
Adidas, the athletic wear conglomerate, also found that while implementing 3D visual effects in recent campaigns that their engagement rates has risen four times over and their ads were being viewed on average of at least 11 seconds, while Google also reported that their 3D Swirl ads can achieve engagement rates up to 8 times higher than standard ads.
Using the interactivity and memorability of 3D technology, which is still in it’s relative infancy when compared to other forms of advertisements, the novelty makes it much more engaging for potential consumers. 3D ads are providing experiences instead of just pushing out an advertisement, making them stand out from the crowd which can help your audience distinguish your products from the others.
EMERGENCE OF 3D MOBILE TRUCK ADVERTISING
3D Mobile Advertising trucks are truly the way of the future. Combining the novelty of three-dimensional screens which will be utilized to produce hyper-realistic visuals and capture the attention of passing audiences with the reach of mobile billboard trucks the amount of creativity you can have with your brand is now limitless and will reach an audience you could only dream of. 3D Mobile Trucks would work the same as other static 3D billboards by producing the illusion of the image coming to life making your advertisement much more memorable to potential clients.
3D fabrication is useful to help launch new products as they are great for promoting a new product, as they can drive by a given location with the realistic looking product example attached to its vehicle dimensions. They can own the market because it serves as a lifelike version of the product being advertised. It shows consumers what the product looks like in real life before they see it on the shelves. As the public is spending more time in their cars than ever before, now would be the best time to capitalize and captivate your customers and draw them into your company using a creative 3D Mobile Billboard.
EXAMPLES OF 3D BILLBOARDS AND MOBILE TRUCKS FROM AROUND THE WORLD:
One of the most iconic places for advertisement is located in New York at Times Square. For a long time, this place has been well known due to its big and more creative billboards, but it is not for everyone just a few brands have climbed and remained in the streets of Madison Avenue.
Coca-Cola is one of the first brands Times Square has been working with, almost completing a century. As one of the most popular brands around the globe, this location has helped with brand recognition and has been positioned as the one with the most creative advertisements. Not for nothing, Coca-Cola is recognized to have the first and largest 3D billboard by Guinness Records.
“From the beginning, our brief was to create a pause-and-refresh moment in the crowded environment of Times Square. Our proprietary 3D technology brings our iconic brands to life in a unique and differentiated way that will hopefully catch people’s attention and make them want to engage for a longer period of time.”
– Kim Gnatt, Group Director, Business Strategy, Coca-Cola North America
Coca-cola launched the first and largest 3D robotic billboard, using over 1700 interdependent, computerized LED modules that simultaneously extend and retract creating dimension, texture, and movement to a “static” video becoming three-dimensional content.
To have the right velocity, acceleration, and position of each individual LED the company decided to work with its own software platform. This algorithm technology allows the brand to upload, simulate and display the 3D content smoothly and without any error.
Another example of a good 3D billboard advertisement is the one made in South Korea, early this year by the portal Naver –the largest search portal there– at the COEX Square in Seoul. This 3D advertising display was created to promote the global k-pop sensation BTS on the web toon’s platform titled “Super Casting”.
The advertisement shows 3 of three of the band members, RM Jhope, and Jungkook waving to the crowd, acting like the LED was a big window. After that, they tap a screen that pop-ups and create the illusion of interaction with the audience, after that, they disappear one by one. The company in partnership with the band used ultra-high-definition technology for the display, to generate the perfect illusion and allow the viewer to interact with the billboard.
Other people’s favorite is the one who helped advertise the Amazon Prime series “The Wheel of Time” located at Picadillo Square, London.
Last year the hotspot for advertising in London launched a very dynamic ad with a memorable 3D ilusión where you can see the character of the series coming in and out of what looks like a castle. Additionally, and in order to provide the audience with a variety of experiences, similar 3D billboards were also placed in Tokyo’s Cross Shinjuku Vision and New York’s Big Kahuna at Times Square.
In other matters, mobile billboards have a very singular way to adapt this 3D progression in advertising, for example, Austrian energy drink giant Red Bull with their intuitive wrap on their fleet of trucks.
Using a series of screens around the frame of their trucks Red Bull is showing the rest of the public how their cans are being delivered to their destination. A truck that size might be able to carry more than three cans of the signature can of the energy drink around but that’s not what we’re here for.
Creating a lifelike display of the Red Bull can showing condensation coming off the sides of the energy drink and on the top, along with a realistic display of ice cubes forming around the bottom of the drinks, Red Bull has come up with an eye-catching and larger than life display when traveling around whatever cities they are set up in.
Sticking in the food and drink industry the chocolate brand “Mars” makes its trucks look like a giant bar of chocolate and uses the legend “truck size” to capture the viewer’s attention. With this type of 3D advertisement, you need to play with perspective, colors, and textures.
Also, another good way to trick the eyes of the viewer and make them give a second look at your brand is using these fantastic trucks where you can actually give them an experience with your brand. Can you imagine stopping at a supermarket and seeing one of these mobile billboards with “Maria” your neighbor cooking with a brand new pan jade cook just to try its effectiveness?
Conclusion:
As you may notice 3D billboards are relatively new but utilizing this new type of technology for advertisements would require a bit more creativity and the boldness to experiment in order to gauge the public’s attention. 3D billboards are becoming increasingly more popular across the world, especially in countries who create innovative technologies and they are getting stronger and more refined every day.
As digital advertising is starting to lose its luster and diminishing audience engagement numbers start to set in, why not show the public a new way to bring their message through 3D advertisements and step into one of the industries fastest growing markets.
