Beacon tech strapped to 500 London buses spells "future of OOH"

Around 500 London buses have been equipped with beacon technology to connect consumers with brands in a commercial first.

Exterion Media, an Out-of-Home advertising business is delivering information and entertainment to around 300,000 London bus-riders every day.

Developed in collaboration with Proxama PLC, the tech uses Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacon technology to send targeted in-app messages to London commuters’ mobile devices.

This creates an opportunity to deliver highly contextualised messages at moments when they’re most receptive, which when combined with Out-of-Home (OOH) advertising, can prompt immediate action.

This announcement comes after a successful six month beacon trial on 110 buses in Norwich, which saw 30% of users clicking through from receipt of notification and 2,000 app downloads.

Exterion’s online urban community work.shop.play. recently found London to have the highest penetration of smartphones (94 per cent) in the UK – this combined with lengthy journeys makes beacons on London buses an attractive channel to deliver extended consumer engagement to audiences on the move.

“We believe the future of OOH engagement is the ability to deliver a truly personal experience; and, with so many of us keeping our smartphones handy during the bus trips we take every day, it makes sense to combine the two,” says Jason Cotterrell, Managing Director UK, Exterion Media.

“Our ultimate aim is to deploy this technology across our portfolio nationwide, with a long-term vision of providing full connectivity across buses in the UK.”