Fox first to use bus beacons to push Kung Fu Panda 3 content
Entertainment company Fox has become the first brand to use beacons on London buses as part of a promo campaign for Kung Fu Panda 3.
Exterion Media outlined its plans fit some 500 buses with beacons last year, claiming it would give advertisers the chance to target around 300,000 bus riders every day with content.
For the Kung Fu Panda activity, Exterion partnered with popular music streaming app Shazam which it will use as the vehicle to push out content.
From next month (11 March), passengers using the music recognition app will be served film content such as the trailer and have the ability to book cinema tickets directly via their device. When a passenger is travelling on a Shazamable bus, they will be prompted to open the Shazam app on their smartphone by notices posted on the interior of the bus. Once a user presses the Shazam button the app will listen out for the beacon signal on the bus. When the signal is detected the app will display the Kung Fu Panda content
“This is a fantastic, engaging campaign that exemplifies the potential of beacons – something we’ve been championing for a long time. Until now, pedestrians have been the predominant beneficiary when it comes to bus advertising; but now we can directly reach commuters during the millions of bus journeys being made every month with relevant, timely and engaging content in an unobtrusive way,” explained Mike Wood, product and innovation director at Exterion Media.
“We’ve been working toward this moment, which fully realises our digital capability, for a long time. With beacons we are able to deliver engaging, informative and entertaining content directly to millions of Shazam users. Our ambition is to extend this capability across our national portfolio, which creates inspirational experiences for 92 per cent of UK adults every week.”
For Fox, it’s already looking beyond this campaign at how it can use the data gathered to plan upcoming marketing efforts.
Marketing director, Chris Green, said: “What is also very attractive is that the technology will return accurate data on which audiences are engaging with the campaign, which will be valuable to both this and future campaigns.”
Promotion of the film ahead of its release next month began this week (22 February) with T-sides and Supersides on buses across the capital.