Week 3 Billboards Go Interactive Holly Lee

the last few months, Google Inc., Nokia Corp. and France Telecom SA's Orange have run pilot advertising campaigns that let a person interact with posters in bus stops, phone booths, train stations and airports in cites including New York and London.

Starting March 1, European wireless operator Orange will spend several hundred thousand dollars to run an advertising campaign across 300 sites in London and New York City for its ON wireless application that runs on Google's Android wireless operating system.

Interactive outdoor advertising is still unproven on a large scale and the business model is in an early stage of development, but Amobee says it is in discussions with other large multinational companies to roll out new campaigns.

As a result, he is already mulling new campaigns and plans to move more of his ad budget into this area.

But outdoor advertisers and marketers say the ads could also be used to distribute games, video ads, coupons and even as a way to sell physical or digital goods and services.

A consumer waiting at a bus stop can hold his or her smartphone near the poster and download the app over Wi-Fi technology or by sending a text message to the company.

The interactive ads have allowed the company "to more accurately measure the effectiveness of our marketing spend" and made the "campaign experience more personal and engaging for our customers," said Jean Donadieu de Lavit, chief marketing officer of an Orange subsidiary that develops wireless hardware and software.

The poster let a person download Google's mobile app through a free Wi-Fi router installed in the location.

Nigel Emery, director of marketing and business development for Cemusa North America, a large outdoor advertising company that has worked with Amobee to place ads in New York City bus stops, said traditionally outdoor ads are sold for a lump sum covering a certain time frame.

the last few months, Google Inc., Nokia Corp. and France Telecom SA's Orange have run pilot advertising campaigns that let a person interact with posters in bus stops, phone booths, train stations and airports in cites including New York and London.

The billboard also gives users free Internet access at the bus stop.

Cemusa has yet to fully embrace the model, however.

"It's an old-school media that has been around for hundreds of years but we've dressed it up and made it fresh," said Zohar Levkovitz, chief executive and co-founder of Amobee, Inc., a start-up based in Redwood City, Calif., that has developed the technology and begun selling it to advertisers.