We modern humans live in a culture of distraction. Most of us walk the streets talking, texting, listening to music, and generally spacing out. So what does it take to make us stop in our tracks and take notice of something, especially if that something is an advertisement?
Well, Inwindow Outdoor specializes in stopping you dead in your tracks and making you take notice. Its mission is to create dynamic, often interactive display ads by transforming vacant storefronts and mall space into "storescapes," as it calls them. In the company's bag of tricks are 3D cameras, 3D projectors, motion-reactive video, augmented reality, and touch screens that go way beyond the iPad. The result can often be an immersive experience and a sense of surprise from passersby that they are not only stopping to look at an ad, but also interacting with one.
According to Inwindow founder and CEO Steve Birnhak, creating a successful storescape that will engage people on the street is a balancing act of making the visuals clear but incorporating an element of mystery.
"You have to have the initial, 'What is this? What am I looking at?' But it must still be straightforward."
Birnhak is in his element talking technology. In a previous life, he co-founded an Internet storage company called SwapDrive. After SwapDrive was bought out, Birnhak looked for his next endeavor. He found it walking past New York City's Toy Building on Broadway. Despite its name, there is no actual toy store in the Toy Building, but it is the corporate headquarters of Hasbro. As Birnhak happened by one day, he saw the first-floor windows pasted with G.I. Joe ads. He asked whether there was a toy store hidden behind that paper, to which the doorman explained that the ads were covering an empty storefront. Thus his idea was born.
Birnhak started small, working out of his apartment selling display ads on bus shelters. He soon moved up to static ads in empty storefront windows. Around 2006, he wanted to create more dynamic campaigns by covering entire storefronts (not just the windows) and incorporating video. The first iterations were simple looped videos playing from a DVD player. But as camera and display technologies evolved, so did the complexity of Inwindow's ads.
From Touch Screens to Face Morphing
Inwindow's recent projects have mostly been film promotions, but overall, it has a diverse client list. For example, it recently did a campaign for the U.S. Navy that featured a huge display with a photo collage depicting enlisted men and women. Viewers could touch and drag photos across the screen, then click to see a video about that officer. Another campaign for Sprint featured screens with live data feeds. Viewers could "paint" with their phones and get geolocation information on nearby attractions, restaurants, and so on.
Inwindow's most successful campaign to date is a kiosk it built for the film Avatar in Los Angeles. In the kiosk, visitors align their face with an outline on a screen. The screen takes a picture of the person's face, then morphs it in real-time into the blue visage of a Na'vi tribesperson. Each person could then e-mail a copy of the picture to a friend. On the first day the kiosk appeared, many waited in line over an hour. Its most recent project is a display for the animated movie Rango in which passersby see themselves on a large display, then disappear into the background (a reference to the film's chameleon protagonist).
Behind the Curtain
Pulling off such complex projects that run in spaces off-site, around the country, and for at least 16 hours a day requires three key elements: Cracker-Jack logistics, a robust back-end, and a massive programming effort. This is where Anthony DiPrizio, director of technology, comes in. DiPrizio is the mastermind behind the display windows, managing a team of programmers and designers at Inwindow's headquarters, a hip loft space in New York City's chic SoHo neighborhood. As much as DiPrizio tries to streamline the workflow, each new client and campaign requires custom-built apps and coding. As an added challenge, the company is often asked to create and execute a new campaign in a very short amount of time.
"In this industry, we don't have the luxury of getting months to pull these things off," Birnhak says. "If we get five weeks, we're lucky."
According to DiPrizio, Inwindow developers use C++ for most programming tasks because it is more robust, flexible, and reliable than Flash for their purposes. Such high-end development and video work requires serious systems and lots of storage. Most of Inwindow's 25 staffers use computers with multiple GPUs and solid-state hard drives. Inwindow's e-mail is hosted in the cloud and it uses Google Docs for some basic collaborative documents.
Logistics is Everything
Perhaps Inwindow's true feat of technology prowess is how it sets up and maintains its display ad sites. Birnhak says that Inwindow currently has between 225 and 250 locations, with access to over 500 shopping malls. Each site is scrupulously inspected to make sure the conditions are right. For example, does the site have 220-watt outlets and the right kind of glass for Inwindow's displays and projectors?
Installing a high-tech Inwindow display ad looks a bit like setting up a rock concert. All the equipment is tested extensively on-site before being packed in rolling "roadie boxes" and trucked to the site. Then a highly-trained group of installers works against the clock to get everything up and running under tight deadlines.
"Logistics is unbelievably important," Birnhak says. "You have to coordinate so many different elements, and it takes so much communication from everyone in the company. One thing gone wrong can throw everything off."
Keeping Tabs
Once an ad site is operational, the next big challenge is keeping it running. DiPrizio says he set up the operations end of the business to run like a 24-hour data center. IP cameras at each site offer remote visuals, and GPS tags and geotracking lets the team know in real time if a piece of equipment is taken offline. To simplify the monitoring process, DiPrizio and his team created a "war room" software app that displays a map of each live location with stats and status. DiPrizio is very proud—and protective—of this software, since it offers Inwindow an edge and a guarantee to its clients that barring a power outage or natural disaster, their ad sites won't crash.
In Demand
When asked whether the economic downturn has cut the dollars companies spend on things, such as high-tech display ads, Birnhak says the opposite has been true.
"Our business has been consistently growing all the way through, even in a recession. In 2009, 15 percent of our projects were digital and 85 were static ads. Last year, that totally flipped. Now the majority of our projects are digital."
Of course, adding clients and projects also adds to the workload. DiPrizio says he is excited to be in a field that is pioneering and constantly improving 3D technologies and software development, but there is a trade off.
"This business means long hours and a lot of sacrificed weekends. But it is definitely worth it when you see the final product and the reaction it can cause with people on the street."