Japanese Outdoor Media Innovations

Japan is one of the leading countries in Media Innovations. This is easy to see on the amount of new materials and strategies developed to create media presented in advertising reports and marketing reviews.

A great place to see this innovations are at the Subway that holds a large variety of advertising formats. Such as the one below presented by Japan Marketing News Blog.

Here is a part of the article :

Japanese printing companies have started offering advertisers the ability to display moving pictures on paper advertisements.

The above ad announces the debut of a new mascara from Lancome that uses a vibrating applicator brush. The poster is made from electronic paper—a technology that allows paper to be written and rewritten repeatedly. So what you’re looking at is essentially a paper poster hanging from the ceiling of a subway train in which the image changes.

Similarly some train stations are now equipped with poster banks for electronic paper ads that can refresh with new images at specific intervals. If you’re an advertiser and you rent the space, you can replace the ad whenever you want while sitting right at your office desk, since the wall frames are connected to PHS phone networks that tap into the internet.

Another great example of using space in the Subway Station and creating some kind of interaction of the brand with the consumers are the gift wall such as used by the Ipod Nano and Canon. (Pictures and info from Ping Mag)

Ipod Nano

Canon

But using the walls are not enough, so why not use every little space to do advertising, here are some examples from Ping Mag also.

The floor:

The pillars:

The ticket gates:

The escalator

And of course inside the subway

But this last one is one of my favorites – a tunnel print animation – incredible.

Advertise in Bento

I once read an article about new media, talking about how we should advertise using day-to-day products and items such as Coffee Cups. I’m a heavy Starbucks drinker and I always repeat to myself “Man this would make a great place to advertise” and also there are a lot of different products that can turn in to media, like Pizza Boxes, Take away Lunch Sacks, Plastic cutlery the list goes on and on.

In Japan there is a product that would make a great media, and is also seen as an art, that right Bento Boxes, there is a lot of ways to build transform the food in to images, here are some examples.

If you want to know more about bento and Bento Art take a look at Anna the Red Blog

Paying to Advertise

This is not new but vending masters Apex Corp laid out plans that will bring free or subsidized non-alcoholic drinks, here is an excerpt of the article posted in Japan Probe

“TOKYO – Thirsty Japanese will soon be able to drink coffee or other non-alcoholic beverages at a low price or even for free — as long as they watch a 30-second advertisement on the vending machines.

Vending machine operator Apex Corp. will start a service next month to turn its machines into a new medium for advertisers, who will pick up the partial or full cost of drinks.

Apex runs 35,000 vending machines across Japan that serve drinks in paper cups, generally priced at 70 to 120 yen (60 cents to one dollar) a cup.

Under the ‘MediCafe’ project, the vending machine will play an advertiser’s video for around the 30 seconds it takes to pour the drink and dispense a paper cup with an advertisement printed on it.

‘We will select the locations of vending machines which would best suit the customers targeted by advertisers,’ said an Apex company official.”

This sounds too good to be true, but a great way to do new advertising and brand development.

Oh the release was in May 2007, so probably is already working in some locations… or maybe not anymore. If anyone has more information about it tell me