Zeno has installed its first Canadian ad display at Toronto’s CN Tower, allowing inaugural advertiser Coke to put some of print creative in motion–sort of.
The Toronto-based company’s out-of-home light boards use a series of high-definition images arranged so they appear to move as viewers pass the ads. The animations stop when the viewer stops, creating what company president Karen McGuire calls “The Zeno Shuffle.”
“People walk by it, it grabs their attention, and they don’t get it, but in a positive way,” McGuire said. “It’s like when you were a kid at the fair and you were in front of those mirrors that make you short, tall, skinny or fat. [People] stop and play with it.”
The Coke ads, which feature a snowboarder, are adapted from existing out-of-home creative currently in market.
The technology was first presented to Canadian advertisers in 2004 by Mirage Motion Media. Zeno acquired it in 2008 and began testing the concept in Asia as it sorted out North American patents.
McGuire positions her product “slightly up-market” based on internal studies conducted in Canada and Asia that produced product and brand retention scores over 90%.
McGuire said Zeno is in the negotiations to expand its product to the U.S. and U.K. markets.
