oOh!media has unveiled its next generation of interactive retail screens loaded with new sensory features.

oOh!’s cEXCITE retail screens provide engagement and networked national reach that give advertisers opportunities to interact with consumers that the category has not seen before.

The range of technologies combined within each of oOh!’s EXCITE panels include:

• Multi-touch screens
• Kinect 2.0 gesture control;
• Voice recognition technology;
• High definition web-cams;
• Wi-Fi;
• Audio; and
• Networking capabilities.

For the first time, digital advertising will have access to all these technologies across a network that links advertisers and consumers through the integration of the creative with online, mobile and social channels.

oOh! CEO Brendon Cook said oOh!’s EXCITE panels move beyond converting traditional inventory to digital signs.

“Digital technology has changed forever how we communicate. Today’s announcement is a major step in oOh!’s digital strategy and accelerates the changes that digital technology is bringing to the Out Of Home industry,” Cook said.

“Our proprietary content management system creates a partnership of technology and content that provides advertisers with new capabilities to connect with consumers and achieve nationally-networked, mass-audience reach.

“The opportunities of how this can be used are limited only by the imagination.”

oOh! is initially rolling out 50 new panels in centres across Australia with the first advertisers to utilise the capabilities being Village Roadshow for its new release of kid’s flick Pan.

The EXCITE screens will be placed in high traffic spots – giving a wide berth for interactivity and crowd viewing, plus a long viewing time – such as the food courts in Australia’s top shopping centres.

oOh!’s digital strategy director, Brendon Cropper, said the release of the EXCITE panels was an exciting evolution of the OOH sector.

“We’ve spent more than $1 million in the development of the EXCITE panels which take the Out Of Home industry to an entirely new level and set the benchmark for consumer engagement,” Cropper said.

“We know that the offer of interactivity is appealing to consumers, from our experience with 33,000 consumers joining a touch to play game on the screens during a two-week campaign.

“We’ve packed in all the latest technologies we could to equip brands and their advertising agencies with the opportunity to be creative and develop interactive campaigns with both cut through and reach.

“The world leading capabilities can be grouped into three main campaign themes: Fun, Fame, Fortune.

“Fun includes gaming, via gesture control, voice recognition and recording, Fame includes the webcam for photography and Fortune is for competitions that utilise the touchscreen that is linked to a sophisticated computerised back-end.

“The online functionality enables all campaigns to go viral via uploads and downloads,” he said.