Digital signage display technology is constantly evolving, but these changes are generally unseen. One of the most significant changes that audiences can see in outdoor digital signage is the introduction of 3D billboards (anamorphic digital billboards).
Digital signage venue owners have been embracing anamorphic digital billboard installations in recent years, and so have advertisers. These installations allow advertisers to be creative and in the process make headlines around the world.
Anamorphic digital billboards are similar to LED videowalls, they’ll always make an impression. Not only do people stop in the street to admire anamorphic digital billboard displays, but they get shared all across social media.
Outdoor digital signage is great for building brand awareness in general, but these 3D installations take it to the next level.
Examples Of Anamorphic Digital Signage Billboards
You can find anamorphic digital billboards all over the world, but some of the most prestigious and well-known ones are located in London, Tokyo, New York, Seoul & Melbourne.
These are prime locations for various reasons and have all hosted incredibly effective and memorable creatives. Not only do all these sites have large numbers of foot traffic and dwell time, they also create viral social media posts.
Not only has the technology powering these screens improved over time, but so have the types of creatives and industries making use of 3D creatives.
Media owners develop these stunning anamorphic digital display screens to give advertisers a chance to differentiate. Campaigns that originally ran on these screens did just that.
One of the first 3D creative campaigns was for Coca-Cola, and was complex as it used both common 3D techniques, as well as being mechanically 3D. It was one of the world's first, and largest 3D campaigns. This campaign took place in New York City, in Times Square, and was a show stopper.
After such an impressive campaign, a sort of arms race was started, with companies all over the world building and deploying anamorphic digital signage campaigns. One of the main industries to really embrace this trend has been the entertainment industry, in particular the gaming industry.
Gaming companies such as Riot Games and Epic Games are responsible for some of the most exciting anamorphic outdoor digital signage campaigns.
Epic Games' recent campaigns include Fall Guys and Fortnite x Balenciaga. Whilst Riot Games recent launched Star Guardian Xayah. All of these can be seen below
Fall Guys:
Fortnite x Balenciaga:
Star Guardian Xayah:
As time has gone on, more and more non-entertainment companies are looking to make use of anamorphic digital signage displays. Fashion and tech companies are making a splash with high-quality and unique content.
Check out a recent campaign in Japan:
Powering Anamorphic Digital Display Screens
One of the most important aspects of being able to power these incredible screens (aside from great creatives) is having the right content management system, or CMS.
A CMS is what enables creatives to be uploaded to the screen and schedules set. Without a digital signage CMS platform, these 3D creatives wouldn’t be possible.
These CMS platforms come in a wide variety, one of them being Doohly. Not only can Doohly support these 3D creatives, but we have support for HTML, video and image creatives, we even support programmatic content.
The other software component needed is media player software. This piece of software is what outputs the creative and is installed on a small computer, known as a media player. Doohly also provides one of these, that is used in conjunction with the CMS software.
Software isn’t the only thing needed to power anamorphic digital displays - hardware is needed as well. Namely, a media player to output the creatives and actual screens. These screens are generally an array of custom-built LED panels.
Powering these 3D screens is very similar to setting up small-scale networks, the pieces are all the same, just different variants. If you’re looking to create your own digital signage network, why not start today?
Reach out to the team at Doohly, our sales team can help make your digital signage dreams a reality.
