Bus-shelter Advertising. BYO wetsuit...

These days its hard to sit at a bus shelter without seeing someone with headphones in their ears, taking a call or glued to their phone texting frantically in order to pass the time. The times when people talked and interacted at bus stops or train stations has gone and now people would prefer to look busy and avoid eye contact with other rather than enjoying a 5 minute break or have a chat with a fellow public transport user.

A few weeks ago in class Wags discussed the concept of Bus Shelter interactive marketing strategies. I thought the idea of the side of a bus shelter dispensing free fruit juices was brilliant so I had a further look into the idea of interactive marketing at tram, train and bus stops, and some of the results were truly inspired!

Here are a few engaging creative and innovative techniques used for bus shelter across the world.

Guarana Sports Drink, soccer net shelter in Brazil.

Virtual Oven to keep commuters toasty warm while they wait.

Everyone loves choice!

These innovative advertising strategies are genius! Rather than advertisers putting capital into mediocre print advertisements that end up vandalised with a black graffiti tag covering their main message, it is far more successful to execute an eye-catching and engaging marketing creation. These bus shelters may only be one-off developments however the media attention and social buzz that can occur from having even just one of these, can be far more successful than an average print advertisments plastered on the sides of countless bus shelters. Take the in-text photos for example, Teens take photos and upload them to Facebook, adults enjoy a nostaligic experience of kicking a soccer ball while trying to aim at the sports drink brand (reinforcement) and commuters may even change their regular route  to the oven bus shelter to keep warm in the colder months. All of these post experience actions reenforce the brand, the product and the image.

 The bus shelter I want to focus on for the purpose of E-Marketing is a highly interactive electronic marketing tool designed by 'Inwindow Outdoor', advertising the Monterey Bay Aquarium in San Francisco. This virtual fish tank is a transformed bus shelter that in fully decorated to simulate an underwater scene, including a fake kelp roof. It also allows people to virtually experience a 150 ft dive into an underwater world! Along the virtual dive they see different creatures an at the end of the descent a prompter asks you to pose for a photo which is then electronically sent as an underwater postcard to your email or Facebook. The results from this campaign were phenomenal with 32,000 unique interactions were recorded and over 43,000 people posed to have their photos taken. And the best part, only 13 bus shelters were used.

I would absolutely love to see more fun interactive marketing techniques like these around. I think they are a brilliant way to communicate the brands image and increase the likelihood of brand recognition.

Let me know if you have seen anything like this around, I would love to check out some more :)