Seoul | A bakery chain making a statement at the airport: Paris Baguette’s Air Lab is packed with some surprisingly bold and sometimes a little exotic digital signage ideas. It’s definitely worth a visit—and not just for what might be Korea’s best cookies.
Flagship projects often seem to have unlimited budgets, no need to follow standards, and are designed to grab attention. At least, that’s the perception. The reality—especially when it comes to budgets—is usually les glamorous.
From a digital signage perspective, flagship locations can be a dream playground. Take the Paris Baguette shop in Terminal 1 at Seoul Incheon Airport, for example. It’s part of a concept called Air Lab, where signage specialists got to bring a fun idea to life—probably with some solid backing from the local display industry.
Where else, besides trade shows or showrooms, do you get to see a video wall made of ten transparent OLED screens? In this shop, the live bakery in the middle is surrounded entirely by these see-through displays. The content played on them isn’t particularly exciting, but it does play around with the screen’s transparency in some clever ways.
At the sales counter, long stretch displays are placed right at eye level—unfortunately, they block eye contact between customers and staff. Using digital signage to spark interest at the counter makes sense, but in this case, good old ceiling-mounted screens might have worked better.
One of our favorite features is a set of three round LCDs—something you almost never see outside of trade shows. They display stunning 3D content, but they’re so subtle you might miss them entirely.
Naturally, there’s also an order kiosk and a double-sided digital signage column on wheels outside the store. After all, this is Korea—there has to be at least one sleek self-service terminal calling out to passersby.
The Air Lab concept is really well executed—and surprisingly, everything is still running smoothly even after three years. That’s pretty impressive, considering digital features in flagship stores often fade out fast due to limited budgets and a lack of long-term planning.
And of course, no flagship is complete without a signature item. At Paris Baguette, it’s their famous sand cookies—a well-known treat in Korea. They might not seem all that exotic to European visitors, but they’re definitely tasty.
