FOCUS Media, China's largest overseas listed advertising firm, will digitalize its elevator poster network to conform with its flat-panel TV screen standard for better effect, it said yesterday.
The Shanghai-based company will install 10,000 TV screens in high-end residential buildings this year. Nearly half of the screens will replace the former posters ads in the elevators.
"It's a reflection of our customers' needs for digitalized and systematic way of marketing," said Tan Zhi, Focus' president.
The screens, developed by its elevator ads unit Framedia, cost "several thousand yuan" each. The new technology has cost the company more than 100 million yuan (US$13.08 million) in research and development and production.
The screens, which Tan referred to as digital posters as they are only meant for displaying still pictures rather than videos despite the sound function, will help boost Framedia's sales on increased ads slots. They have already received many orders, said Tan, who added that the charge will not change.
Framedia, which Focus acquired in 2005 for US$185 million, had more than 120,000 frames available for sale as of the first quarter, when sales more than doubled from a year ago to US$12.7 million, the fastest-growing unit of Focus.
Its network reaches 45 million high-end customers with a market share of 98 percent in the 33 cities where it already has a presence, according to company data.