CBS Touts New Shows in Video Clips Campaign Beams Previews Via Certain Billboards To Gadgets With Bluetooth


As the fall TV season approaches, networks are trying to be as creative with their ads as they are with their new shows.

CBS, which already plans to promote some of its new shows by stamping their logos on eggs, will try to get some of the four million monthly travelers streaming through New York City's Grand Central Terminal to stream free clips of CBS's new prime-time lineup onto their mobile devices. If these sneak previews on the run are successful, similar campaigns could move to other markets.


Through billboards like these, viewers will be able to download clips of CBS shows.

The television network is bringing to life five of the train station's static billboards in September through technology that allows people standing within about 36 feet of the billboard to activate Bluetooth-enabled cellphones or personal digital assistants and download a half-minute clip. Travelers can instantly take a TV timeout and watch scenes from one of the broadcast network's four new prime-time programs -- "Shark," "Smith," "Jericho" and "The Class" -- as well as its hit show "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation." A viewer can later delete the clip, or save it and pass it along.

After displaying advertisements on eggs, American Airlines, People magazine and videos in shopping malls, CBS is moving to interactive billboards in its attempt to grab the attention of increasingly distracted viewers and direct them to their television sets.

"We are very aggressive in trying to find new forms of reaching the consumer in unexpected places," George Schweitzer, president of the CBS marketing group, says. "We leave no stone unturned, no egg uncracked in trying to figure out how to reach viewers."

Marketing campaigns linking outdoor advertising with Bluetooth technology, a point-to-point wireless connection that allows text, sound, pictures and video to be sent to mobile devices, are becoming ubiquitous in Europe, but CBS's campaign marks the increased adoption of the technology in the U.S. Until now, outdoor advertisers have primarily used text messages to link consumers with digital content through their cellphones. For example, PepsiCo Inc.'s Frito-Lay launched a campaign with CBS Outdoor that added a text-messaging code to Doritos billboards. (See related article.)

Bluetooth technology provides advertisers a way to provide video clips and the like directly to consumers standing within range of the billboard and doesn't require a link to the Internet to download content. Kameleon Technologies, the Paris-based company that developed the MobiZone technology used in the CBS promotion, expects implementation across a variety of platforms, from billboards in urban areas to subway stations and shopping malls to athletic arenas. Because of Bluetooth's short range, the technology isn't expected to be adopted for highway billboards.

Like the addition of neon lights and three-dimensional fiberglass extensions to billboards, the marrying of mobile devices with outdoor advertising is yet another flourish in the booming outdoor-ad business. At the same time, advertisers are able to engage the customer by providing a service, such as a video or audio clip, and increase the viral component of a campaign. "This is a way to take the message off the billboard and literally place it in people's hands and into their lives," says Stephen Freitas, chief marketing officer for the Outdoor Advertising Association of America.

Some Bluetooth campaigns have already been launched in the U.S. Absolut Vodka streamed a song from rock star Lenny Kravitz through billboards in New York and Los Angeles.

By EMILY STEEL; WSJ.com
August 24, 2006