Digital signage is popping up all over the place, from banks to gas station pump tops to roadside billboards — and now it might be coming to the car right in front of you.
Minneapolis-based Rear Window Media is pioneering a new kind of digital signage placement, and the company's name says it all. Rear Window Media is deploying digital signs in the rear windows of cars in Minnesota and Texas, and is looking to move into other markets as soon as possible.
"What we do is we're taking a digital signage technology and bringing it to consumer vehicles," said Marta Anderson, a marketing consultant for Rear Window Media. "It takes a projection technology so that people are still able to obviously see out of their rear windows."
The company's hardware and Web-based software enable deployers to outfit automobiles with digital signage that can be updated and pushed out in real time and that is GPS-enabled to allow for location-specific advertising. The company sells the hardware and maintains the software as a subscription service.
And with the ongoing uproar over digital billboards, which some critics classify as a dangerous roadside distraction, Rear Window Media sees a niche for what it says is a safer, less intrusive alternative.
"We are tying to market it as a safe alternative to digital billboards, because it encourages drivers to keep their eyes on the road," Anderson said. "You're looking straight ahead at the vehicle in front of you, rather than taking your eyes off the road to look at something on the roadside.
"It's also nice because it takes away from putting any permanent structures on the roadways too, so it keeps the roadways beautiful."
Rear Window Media initially started marketing to fleet owners and businesses that maintain several vehicles, Anderson says, but now also is focusing on real estate agents, who would be able to show updated listings and listings appropriate to the locale in which the car is being driven.
The company's hardware is rolling on about a dozen cars in the Minneapolis area, with more on the road in metropolitan areas in Texas like Dallas, Houston and San Antonio.
The technology's reception has been great in Texas, Anderson says, but the company is currently waiting until legislative issues potentially affecting its deployment are cleared up before rolling out more in Minnesota — which could likely take until next year.
"And that's what we're finding in a lot of states, so that's why it's little bit slower to push out into new markets," she said.
The displays do change from day to night, so they're not blinding at night after being visible in full sunlight, she says, and the signs are on a 10-seond rotation with no video. The signs have no flashing lights, and they're readable from a safe distance, so they shouldn't be distracting and shouldn't encourage tailgating, Anderson says. Also, the signs are only visible to drivers in cars behind the signs, not to those to either side, so people seeing the signs are still looking at the flow of traffic ahead of them. So far they haven't seen any issues with the system, she says.
"I think it's a very safe concept," she said. "It's much safer than taking your eyes off the road."
But Dennis Hathaway, president of the Coalition to Ban Billboard Blight in Los Angeles, says he "can't think of a worse idea, frankly." While he acknowledges that he hasn't actually seen on of the rear window signs himself, Hathaway says the idea of having a distraction like that in the midst of highway traffic going 60 to 70 miles per hour just isn't a good one.
"Having a constantly changing digital sign in the rear window, particularly at night…it just raises all kinds of flags about traffic safety if nothing else," he said.
And as far as the rear window projection screens being safer than roadside digital billboards, Hathaway says he's not buying that one either.
"The digital billboards can be a driver distraction, there's no question about that…but to say that to take one potential distraction and move it more into the line of sight doesn't make any sense at all," he said. "It's going to be a worse distraction."
Either way, the company is getting great feedback from its customers, Anderson says. They can update their ads as often as they want, they're adjusting to offer location-specific ads, and people are asking them about the ads when they park their cars, she says.
"I know one of our realtors just thought it was the greatest idea," she said. "He was saying, ‘Why would you want to spend all this money and put your face on a bus bench when you could have it right in people's faces when they're driving?'"