Understanding the revenue-generating, creative and production advantages that only an LED display-based advertising network can deliver, Lamar Airport Advertising recently removed all of the static advertising signage and banners in the Terminal 1 baggage claim area of McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas and replaced them with sixty Engage Series™ and Performance Series™ LED displays from NanoLumens®, https://www.nanolumens.com/ award-winning creators of uniquely compelling interactive LED visualization solutions.
“As the initial purchase price of LED displays continues to become more and more competitive, the enormous revenue-generating, creative and production efficiencies the format offers have become more and more compelling,” said Rosemary Vassiliadis, Director, McCarran International Airport. “After a careful review we decided that the return on investment opportunity was very real, which convinced us that the time was right to undertake a complete renovation of the baggage claim area advertising displays to meet the needs of our advertisers for years to come. Lamar partnered with us to make the project a reality.”
Those needs, according to Brig Newman, Vice President and Senior Director, Airports for Lamar, include better engagement and greater advertising recall coupled with the ability to replace creative on the fly and target arriving passengers with rifle-specific messages.
“Today’s generation of travelers and consumers are completely digital-centric,” he emphasized. “They respond to digitally delivered ads in a way that they never will to static display ads. It’s a generational shift that is here to stay.
“Our advertisers understand the shift and they want to be able to leverage it in their campaigns, complete with audience analytics and targeted messaging.”
Recent studies by Arbitron and Capital Networks underscore the fact that consumers engage more completely and more often with digitally delivered ads than they do with static ads. What’s more, according to the Outdoor Advertising Association of America (OAAA), out of the top 100 OOH advertisers, 37 doubled their spending on digital ads from Q3 2016 to Q3 2017.
“Most of the adverting that Lamar had in that baggage claim area needed to be constantly updated as the shows and events in Vegas frequently change. Removing static banners and sign graphics and putting up new ones was an additional cost for Lamar’s advertisers,” said Dave Merlino, NanoLumens Vice President of Sales. “Replacing those banners with NanoLumens LED displays empower Lamar to offer their clients a world-class digital advertising platform whose content can be changed instantly to meet the needs of its advertisers.”
Among several challenges encountered during this massive project at McCarran International Airport was the task itself! Sixty static signs had to be replaced with NanoLumens displays while the baggage claim area continued to operate around the clock. “The project often took place as travelers were passing through the baggage claim area in what is a 24/7/365 airport,” Merlino stressed.
“This was a huge project considering the number of displays we were replacing,” said Brig Newman. “Time was of the essence as well as we needed to replace the static signage with the NanoLumens displays in a timely fashion to meet the needs of our advertisers. The flexibility we were offered working with NanoLumens, along with their incredible six-year warranty, removed a lot of the issues we were concerned with.”
Local Las Vegas integrator Vision Sign handled this massive install and knew from past experience that NanoLumens displays were the perfect solution for what Lamar wanted to accomplish with this project. “There is a lot of ambient light coming through surrounding windows in the Terminal 1 baggage claim area at McCarran International Airport [that] really lends itself to LED, so NanoLumens was ideal for this install,” said Jeff Quintana, Vice President at Vision Sign. “Lamar Advertising wanted to bring the space to life and switching from the static ads to NanoLumens LED displays did exactly that.”
Lamar and Vision Sign also had to handle the issue of providing the necessary power to run the 60 NanoLumens displays as well as finding the room in this busy airport for a rack system that would power all the content being driven to the displays. As Quintana explained, “NanoLumens specifies the power requirements ahead of time, so that’s a huge help and their displays work with any media player and software platform so the powering content part of the equation is simplified as well.”
Lamar engaged OSSI to design and install the software platform that runs the massive new system. OSSI designed and manages the NOC that powers all the digital signage at McCarran.
The sixty NanoLumens displays were broken down into a variety of sizes and types and installed all around the McCarran International Airport Terminal 1 baggage claim area. The largest among them were soffit displays, with six of these being installed on the walls surrounding baggage claim—all of which were 4mm Performance Series displays measuring 64-by-9 feet. Six more 4mm Performance Series displays were also installed as soffit displays with four of those measuring 32-by-9 feet and the last two checking in at 32-by-5 feet. All of these displays rotate a set list of advertisers, enabling each advertiser to be seen by every arriving passenger in Terminal 1. A complementing loop runs in McCarran’s Terminal 3.
Lamar additionally replaced the dated video system at McCarran International Airport with two landmark 32-by-18-foot 4mm Performance Series displays that run full motion video with sound. “We wanted to restore McCarran’s prominence in welcoming our visitors,” stated Newman. “McCarran has been known for years as “Times Square West”—we’re back on the map with this iconic installation and our advertisers are excited to be a part of this ‘first impact’ greeting.”
The remaining forty-four NanoLumens displays are all Engage Series, vertical banner-face displays installed on columns that surround the McCarran International Airport baggage claim area or are positioned on top of the baggage carousels themselves. There are 22 Engage Series 2.5mm displays that are roughly 5-by-13 feet running on the structural columns throughout the Terminal 1 baggage claim and 8 more banner-face displays that are on smaller columns where the ceiling is a bit lower, measuring 5-by-9 feet.
The remaining 16 horizontal displays were installed on top of the baggage claim carousels —14 of which are double-sided 2.5mm Engage Series displays and two more that are single-sided displays, all measuring 12.5-by-3.5 feet.
Representatives from Lamar Advertising, McCarran International Airport and NanoLumens will take the wraps off the stunning new LED display based digital advertising platform during a VIP by-invitation only Grand Tour on March 26, 2019 at 1:00PM. Learn firsthand about the conceptualization, design and installation of the groundbreaking new platform. For more information about this Grand Tour, please click here.
About Lamar Advertising
Founded in 1902, Lamar Advertising Company is one of the largest outdoor advertising companies in the world, with more than 348,000 displays across the United States and Canada. Lamar offers advertisers a variety of billboard, interstate, logo, transit and airport advertising formats, helping both local businesses and national brands reach broad audiences every day. In addition to its more traditional out of home inventory, Lamar is proud to offer its customers the largest network of digital billboards in the United States with over 3,000 displays.
About Vision Sign
Vision Sign Inc., was founded in 1996. The company’s 40,000-square-foot facility houses complete manufacturing, installation, and service departments. With approximately seventy employees located in the heart of Las Vegas Valley, Vision Sign is capable of managing all signage needs in Southern Nevada.
About NanoLumens
Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, NanoLumens partners with clients to create uniquely compelling, interactive LED visualization solutions that take the guesswork out of owning a display network. As the fastest-growing visualization company in the U.S., the company’s experiential LED displays exceed the imaginations of global clients in retail, transportation, corporate, gaming, higher education, sports and arenas, and houses of worship. Through world-class proprietary technology, NanoLumens displays are ultra-thin and lightweight, energy efficient, and available in any size, shape or curvature. NanoLumens solutions are proudly designed and assembled in the United States of America and come backed by an industry-leading six-year warranty.
