Boomgates - Accident!

Technology advancement created boomgates advertising at car parks. An unique medium with a captive audience since there was always a 15-20 second delay as the driver reaches out to pay the operator or take a ticket from the booth. Last year, TPM had installed several boomgates advertising displays in Singapore for Mini

Some years later, technology is eroding this cost effective medium, in the words of an experienced marketer:-

"With the ERP technology (cashless/ wireless cash deduction device), and all the means to try reduce tail-gating drivers, the boomgates swing upwards too quickly and sometimes, even before the car reaches the boomgates... How can see??"

But a great creative may still provide some saving grace, the copy on the following creative reads "In an accident? Make sure you have a ready plan that suits your needs"....


Date spotted: 1 Nov 2008
Location: Auto-Mega Mart

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In House Ad - Outdoor LED Screen at Queensway

At major cross junctions leading into Orchard and Alexandra; heart of the central urbanites.

Where the YOUTH gather for the latest fashion and cool kicks. FAMILIES flock for their lifestyle/ car buying needs, and weekend breaks.

This LED screen is the best feature place for TV Commercials, MTVs, Publicity Videos, Movie Trailers and Events Coverage.

This in-house ad was fantastically done by "H1Studio" in flash format. We love it!

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Singapore Outdoor Advertising Awards

The Singapore Outdoor Advertising Awards are back for its 7th year and it will be exciting to see the finalists and award winners this year. What I am happier to say is that on its current homepage - as screen captured; there are 2 works which are related to the TPM team! Guess which? ;)

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LED Enhances Traditional Outdoor Displays

The LED technology has recently stabilized at a new high, further boosting the proliferation of LED billboards into the outdoor media landscape. Once upon a time, LED screens, or also known as e-boards or digital outdoor displays, were considered premium and rare products, but now they are considered a mainstream outdoor media format.

Louis M. Brill provides more details in an article with the SIGNINDUSTRY.COM - LED Billboards: Outdoor Advertising in the Video Age. He has also mapped the application of LED billboards into 3 specifics – spectaculars, roadside displays and LED billboards as multiple signs into a network system. Tulip Mega Media, based out of Shanghai, China has done just that with a current operation of LED large screens with a combined area of more than 10,000 square meters in big cities like Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou as cited here.

LED technology has also stablized whereby we are able to explore its lighting capabilities to enhance our displays. Yet, I personally stand-by the view that neon lighting remains an incredible art form and allows for a much wider range of color shades. Neon lighting is also the brightest form of advertising lighting…

This is one of our former landmark sign for Tiger Beer at the start of Chinatown, Singapore. It is also the largest animated neon in Singapore between 2003-2007. It was a very beautiful and powerful strong visual impact.

But TPM has been tinkered around with LED lighting since 2004, and we have harnessed its low power consumption for use in combination with a frontlit banner display as currently seen at the Furama City Center Hotel for Konica Minolta Copiers. The corporate logo and company name is reproduced in LED format adding extra brightness and shine for the night scene. Good visual impact, highly cost effective and environmentally friendly!

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F1 Singapore: No Trees were Harmed

The SINGTEL SINGAPORE GRAND PRIX has attracted unparalleled attention as the world's first night race. It is also the first F1 to be held in Singapore. The race route will be street circuit along tree-lined avenues that runs through the heart of the city.

Wait a minute - "tree-lined avenues".!

While the tree lined avenues do present a picturesque imagery, the proliferation of trees in Singapore is no small matter. In fact, these trees are a constant challenge to us in the outdoor advertising industry in Singapore as they create viewing obstructions to outdoor advertisements on the building facades. Unfortunately, trees in Singapore are also considered the jurisdiction of our highest authority; in fact it is His pet project since the 1970's. There is hardly any good reason to trim or re-locate a tree for commercial reasons. NOT EVEN THE F1!

Thus no tree was harmed or fell for the F1. But a cross-government body was set up to redesign the route and allocation of the Pit Building and a further millions of dollars required to re-locate and trim all of the obstinate trees…

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New Take On Toilet Media

Toilet Media is well-regarded as a way to reach a limited but effectively captive audience. I guess there is some waiting around in the toilet including at the queue and of course, during the "conducting of various businesses"

Usually, toilet media are found on the doors, walls and mirrors. I spotted this interesting one at the loo of Suntec City Convention Center. This time the BASIN is used to communicate the spill-resistant feature... Thus the Toughbook is placed within the wash basin while water from the tap runs periodically over it! Great product-feature-medium-application linkage!



It is amazing how a creative idea goes a long way to instantly communicate a strong message. This is similar to our execution for Nippon All Weather Paint and the Organics/ Sunsilk Frequent Wash campaigns using the fountain feature - Read more about Interesting Fountain Displays

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Singapore Tourism Board Event @ Ang Mo Kio Hub

A "See Yourself in Tourism" event, promoting career opportunities in the tourism sector of Singapore will be held at Ang Mo Kio Hub this Saturday 23 Aug 2008. Working together with the good folks at Festival Square Circle, TPM had put up 2 indoor banner displays inside AMK Hub to drive traffic towards the event.


The venue, AMK Hub, is a large catchment for the school-going and the heartlander families. Young people should take heart that the tourism sector will only grow by leaps and bounds and that since 2007, the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) has been investing S$360 million over three years in manpower development to train and prepare some 74,000 workers for the growth in the tourism sector. Thus such recruitment/ promotional activities must be top-notch to attract the best and most suited, afterall, it's all GIGO (Garbage In Garbage Out).

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Happy National Day Singapore!

The Singapore's National Day 2008 will be celebrated in style and fun at the Marina Bay floating platform this year. We are turning 43 years old!

One major highlight is the usual fireworks display that always captures the audience's oohs and ahhs. But recently, multimedia technologies including projections and Giant LED screens are also lending their brilliance to the special night. A short research on Wikipedia summarizes the use of multimedia over the years:

2003, PIGI projection technology was used, the same technology used for the 2000 Summer Olympics Opening/Closing Ceremony.

2004, the "Biggest LED Screen" in Singapore, measuring 31m x 7m, consisting of 23 separate panels in width and 7 panels in height was used. This setup is also one of the largest outdoor screens in the world. In this year, for the first time, public could send national day greetings via SMS/MMS that will be shown on this LED screen.

2005, "Panoramic Screen and Still Image Projectors" were used. The Panoramic Screen is made up of 26 individual screens each measuring 10m by 6m. Still Image Projectors were used to project the colourful images onto the screen. Also 2 large LED screen, each measuring 8m by 6m, will be used to screen numerous videos and ‘live’ feeds .

2006, same as 2003 is using PIGI projection technology, at the centre of the stadium, a giant Light Emitting Diode (LED) screen is able to split into six smaller screens to provide a powerful visual impact.

2007, "water curtain" - 30 metres high and 90 metres wide, with visual effects provided by six image projectors.

2008, "LED Mash" - consisting of thousands of tiny LED lights which will form a gigantic video screen.

********

Just so you know what to expect this year! Counting down 6 days from now…!

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PALME ASIA 2008 - SINGAPORE

Hailed as the most comprehensive event in S.E. Asia for professional audio and lighting, incorporating AV, music, entertainment and project installations, the PALME Asia 2008 is currently being held at the Suntec Singapore International Convention and Exhibition Centre.


While I was mostly only keen on the display technologies for permanent installations, I visited the event anyway to learn more about our region’s offerings. Although I had expected a higher number of exhibitors, the quality of exhibitors are good enough to make it an eye opening experience for me. I was particularly keen on several exhibitors for their outdoor LED screens, LCD/ Plasma screens and those offering lighting and projector effects.

Anyway, it is worth the quick visit and its last day’s tomorrow!

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Who is Pichon Kun?

"Everywhere with You" was created, in view "...To reach out to the consumers at large, we wanted to create a campaign that would engage them and inform them that Daikin is always around them" - as quoted by Liu Shaw Jiun, GM of Singapore Sales for Daikin Airconditioning in the Marketing Magazine

I also show some TPM's contributory works for the Daikin "Everywhere with You" 13 sites island wide:


But did you also realised the always featured water droplet cartoon? That's Daikin's mascot - Pichon Kun, but why is there a pink water droplet now? A girlfriend? What's her name??

;)

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Why is there No More Neon Advertising in Singapore?

A recent newspaper article focused on outdoor advertising (esp. on neon advertising) in Singapore: While government regulations has been relaxed since 5 years ago, the number of neon advertisements has dropped from 4 large format animated neon signs to only 1 left in the Chinatown area in Singapore.

The article also discusses several interesting factors contributing to the lack of neon advertising - mainly from government restrictions to lack of advertisers' interest and environmental concerns. It concludes that - no matter, the use of high technology lighting in outdoor advertising will definitely go far in contributing to the brightening of Singapore and increasing the overall vibrancy of our city island.

Another interesting web-article focuses on the need for regulatory improvements with the advent of digital outdoor advertising. In fact, with digital outdoor, the number of media spaces has been multiplied infinitely within the same physical space and the speed and low variable costs now allows for some special uses:

"One outdoor advertising company in Madison, Wisc., partners with local and state law enforcement to offer the digital billboards for Amber Alert messages for missing children, trumpeting the fact that an emergency message can be displayed within minutes of a request."

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Tiger Beer's Interactive Games Den

The Orchard Underpass has been transformed into an interactive games den by the Asia Pacific Breweries Singapore's Tiger Beer in its current “Enjoy Winning” campaign. Pedestrians can take part in eight interactive games and enjoy “winning moments” and friendly rivalry.

This execution also highlights that interactive outdoor is not necessarily synonymous with digital outdoor. Essentially, interactive means a two-way street between the brand and its target audience. As much as the brand is trying to communicate its offerings and values, it must also create an avenue for the target audience to empathise with it. Thus even with the recent proliferation of LED/LCD/ Plasmas and blue-cast technology into digital outdoor, the interactive element still has much room for growth.

One key concern about unleashing full interactivity is the lack of moderation – or better known as the “Youtube dilemma”/ “A Slippery Slope of Censorship at YouTube” But I guess this campaign’s moderation lies in the white-board eraser and the next member of the public who wish to leave their (temporary) mark behind…

Via: Marketing
Date: May 2008
Location: Orchard Underpass
Format: Creative/ Ambient

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GIANT Luggage Spotted in Singapore

Did some giant wandering around Singapore lose their luggage today?

This 3-D display for a giant luggage by the Carlton was spotted at the open field near the Tanjong Pagar area today. The size is deceptively small in the pictures and I have not seen it for myself yet. But I was assured that it towered close to 2 persons in total height. Nice finishing touch with the coat hanger detail as well, since I can now be sure that it is definitely target at the frequent/ business travelers.

I am empathize closely with these business travelers, it is totally enjoyable to be zipping around new cities and meeting new people and culture etc. But managing that luggage along with all that moving around, and the dread packing...?! The size of this display completely correlates with the size of the headaches of frequent travelers. Nice...

TPM was also part of another ART-vertisement display in Singapore at 5 locations. Read more here…

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F1 News: Singapore tests lighting system

From www.autosport.com; "F1 News: Singapore Tests Lighting System" By Matt Beer -

Some interesting extracts -

"....Sixteen light projectors have been temporarily set up along a 64-metre stretch of the capital's St Andrew's Road. The project's lighting consultant Valerio Maioli switched the projectors…. "

“The lights have a 3000 lux illumination rating, compared to around 100 lux for Singapore's standard street lights, and the average 50,000 lux of normal sunlight.”

“The 'digiflag' electronic sign-boards that will be used in place of normal flag marshals are also being demonstrated.”

--

Personal comment: My friend and I are no F1 fans. Neither do we have much interest on racing. Maybe that's why we can't understand why a “digiflag” instead of the checked ones that we are used to seeing? Personally, I like"digi-everything" and there are the technology and practical reasons etc, but traditional should count for a lot too! It is our first F1 anyway, and we are already the first night circuit, so let’s keep everything else "F1" as it is...

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Dimly-lit Flyer Does Not Quite Take Off...

Bright and well designed lighting is extremely vital to portray a city's vibrancy. Thus the city skyline not only includes the buildings but also billboard displays and iconic features such as a ferris wheel. Did the ferris wheel trend all started with the Millennium Eye in London?

8 years later, Singapore has one too - The Singapore Flyer! It had its soft launch on Valentine's Day, mid Feb 2008 and has been operating since. But its effect on the overall city skyline seems to be lacking... Mr Lim Boon Hee commented on this via TODAY newspaper on 26 Mar 2008. His comments as follow:

As the above picture shows, Mr Lim is quite right, as the Singapore Flyer is currently lit in an electric blue shade with white neon animated in square sections along the wheel. And Rhonda Koh from the Singapore Flyer has replied on the WEEKEND TODAY to confirm that this blue hue is intentional and the dynamic lighting effects will be unveiled in the Grand Opening on April 15.

In my personal view, not only must the lighting effects be more dynamic, they must be a lot more brighter as well for a good impact. But I am also very curious to why the "spokes" of the wheel are not lit, giving the strange effect of a giant RING? Fengshui??

Here's the Taipei Miramar Wheel and the nightscape view of Taipei. Hopefully the formal lighting plan for the Singapore Flyer will have the same impact on our own Singapore skyline. Till 15 April 2008 then. Mr Lim, myself and a whole load of us are looking forward to the unveiling...!

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ART-vertisement Makes a Garden out of Singapore

Someone mentioned to me before that Singapore is not a Garden, but a plantation. Yes, it is a very green country, but so are the palm tree fields across the causeway. Not a pleasant comment, but it does seem true.

But with ART-vertisements, the normally placid lawns and trees get a good splash of colour and vibrancy. That’s the difference between a garden and a plantation as a garden it is a place to interact and have a good time with nature, furnishing and decorations.

The current ART-vertisement featured at the Raffles Green at the Raffles MRT station is even more meaningful as it spreads a strong environmental message. This is a clipping feature from TODAY newspaper on 25 Mar 2008. Guess the editorial says it all…

TPM was also part of another ART-vertisement display in Singapore at 5 locations. Read more here…

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The Long Awaited Update in BCA Guidelines for Outdoor Advertising!

The Building Construction Authority (BCA) is the key authority governing outdoor advertisements in Singapore. As their name implies, their jurisdiction is mainly focused on the building-related large format, shop signage and banner displays. Not as much for the transit and street-furniture forms of displays. But looking at the high difference of vibrancy between the transit ambient displays vs. the building large format and neon displays in Singapore, we wonder if the difference in governing bodies has any effect on this observation?

Anyway, the long awaited update in BCA guidelines for outdoor advertising has finally been revealed on their website on 18 Mar 2008!

Ever since I joined this industry, more than 2 years ago, we have been heavily hinted upon that there will be an update of BCA guidelines. We had always assumed that these updates will boostler the industry, especially, with the upcoming F1 races and two Integrated Resorts (IR) development in 2008, and 2010 respectively. We heard nothing official until now...

But please don't get your hopes up, like me... Ouch...!

Some new updated guidelines esp. for displays in the Central Area incl -
* "The key promotional message and name / details of the event must be the predominant component of the sign and the supporting graphics / pictures are not to exceed 50% of the size of the sign." [[The previous ruling was for the promotional message to be at least 20% of the size of the sign, now it is at least 50%...]]

* The maximum display period for each temporary (banner) sign is two calendar months. There is to be a minimum period of two weeks before the display of a replacement sign. [[ The previous ruling was for 3 months....]]

There's more than the above highlights, I will not comment further except maybe to weep in the corner of my office for a while. DO NOT TAKE MY COMMENTS/ BLOG AS THE LAWFUL GUIDELINES, please get direct details from the BCA website and consult directly with the BCA officer at Level 2 of the MND Building along Maxwell Road for a better means of compliance with the new guidelines.

Good luck everyone!

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Outdoor Advertising and the Goverment

Most industries work hand-in-hand with the government for mutual growth ie. business growth = economy growth etc. This synergy however, is not applicable to cigarettes, drugs, alcohol, guns and things that will essentially kill a person.

So how does the outdoor advertising industry fall into this group of outcasts?
Pardon the the slight tone of resentment here. I am caught up in some bureaucracy recently, hence the lack of updates. Do stay tuned however, I just came back from a quick trip to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. ;)

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Happy Chinese New Year!

Happy Chinese New Year in 2008! OCBC has really harnessed its corporate colours strongly to heighten the festive spirit. This was spotted along Chinatown today.


The TPM team also had the chance to join in the festive season by installing this similar Chinese New Year banner for OCBC at Northpoint. What a splash of strong colour and hopefully, strong luck for the Year of the Rat!
Location: Northpoint Shopping Centre
Format: Banner

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What's a 20+25millon Contract in Singapore Like

The latest update seems to be Kingsmen Creative - $25millon and Pico Art International for $20million. The glory of our local industry. Some news extracts -

Catching Formula One Race In High Style
Source : The Business Times, December 7, 2007

Extract: ...“Singapore GP has also awarded to two companies - PICO Art International and Kingsmen Creatives - the contract to construct some of the grandstands, seating and corporate hospitality suites for the race. The five-year contract is expected to be worth $25 million.”

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