During the OVAB Europe conference day, Christian Vogel, Wall AG’s head of digital operations, presented the German company’s digital signage plans.

Their first significant digital installation will be in the Berlin underground system, for which the company holds advertising rights. The U6 Friedrichstrasse station will become completely digitalised, with all static posters being replaced by digital panels.

14 Digital City Light Posters incorporating 65” Full HD screens will be placed at the entrances and exits of the station. Content will be primarily advertising.

12 Digital City Light Boards (using 4 :3 projection screens) will be placed across from the platforms and will show infotainment content (focusing on Berlin and the Brandenburg region) as well as advertising.

At present there are no plans to install any audience measurement technology. The only figure that Wall is communicating to the advertising agencies is the daily passenger number – currently 47,500.

Wall also intends to extend its BlueSpot network. 139 units have already been deployed in 6 German, cities, and a seventh, Munster, will soon join the list.

Finally, Christian Vogel explained the difficulties involved in installing LED panels in Germany, due to two major constraints:

- the laws in Germany concerning urban development and protection of the countryside are relatively strict

- the initially high investment costs that would be required in order to create a network large enough to have an impact for advertisers. Wall is not ready to engage such costs and is waiting for the development of more reasonably priced technologies.