powered by

DooH: When Screens Come to Life

Seoul | German premium automobile brands promote their latest vehicles (Mercedes EQE, Audi Q4 etron and BMW M) with forced perspective DooH campaigns. invidis was on-site to experience the fascination of 3D billboards.

It used to be static posters, but today brands advertise digitally in public spaces. But not all DooH campaigns are the same: the spectrum ranges from digital posters to motion graphics to full video. A special form of moving images are computer-generated forced perspective campaigns. invidis wanted to learn more about the Forced Perspective boom on so-called 3D billboards and travelled to Seoul, Korea.

Located at K-Pop Square in Gangnam, Seoul, COEX Artium is probably the most iconic 3D Digital Out of Home installation in the world. The Samsung Outdoor LED covers 1,620 square meters of the facade and consists of 31,000 outdoor LED modules with a 10mm pixel pitch. The LED installed by Samsung in 2018 offers almost double UHD resolution, but most importantly, it’s an L-shaped digital canvas for forced perspective content.

YouTube

By loading the video, you agree to YouTube’s privacy policy.
Learn more

Load video

The Secret of Forced Perspective

In addition to an L-shaped LED wall, forced perspective experiences require customized content. Creative agencies achieve the spectacular 3D effects through an additional virtual frame around the art work that is used for shadows and other special effects. Forced Perspective uses optical illusions to make objects appear further away, closer, larger or smaller than they actually are. The impression is that content elements protrude from the screen. The content is created on CGI 3D platforms in which animations and VFX are added.

The full experience only in the sweet spot

However, the spectacular motion graphics are only really convincing at the sweet spot – the extension of the L-edge. For this reason, Forced Perspective 3D billboards so far are only been used on iconic DooH screens with a long dwell time at the sweet spot. Forced perspective campaigns are rarely seen on scalable roadside touchpoints.

But after the boom in Asia – especially China and Korea – and larger installations in North American cities, interest is also picking up in Europe. Ocean Outdoor’s Piccadilly Circus is the most prominent 3D billboard in Europe and it remains exciting to see whether large forced perspective campaigns will soon be seen in Germany, too.