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Off to watch Darts?
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One reader of Sport and Technology recently suggested that 'View from the Editor' is merely a vessel to show off how many sporting occasions I attend. Nothing of course could be further from the truth otherwise I would now be writing about how I travelled to Dublin at the weekend to watch my darts hero Phil 'The Power' Taylor thrash John 'Darth Maple' Part by seven sets to two in the final of the Paddy Power World Grand Prix, only to be caught up in a chain of events that involved a three-car pile-up (no casualties) in Dun Laoghaire (contact me by e-mail for correct pronunciation) and culminated in watching a Gaelic Football match rather than the darts. But no, 'View from the Editor' probes much deeper than whichever sports event I can get tickets to.
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Denilson holds off his challengers
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Exeter City Football Ground
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The UK experience
LED perimeter advertising caused a furore in the UK when free-to-air broadcaster Channel 5 showed the Albania versus England soccer international World Cup qualifier in March 2001 complete with dancing images on electronic hoardings. Complaints to the Channel 5 switchboard were abundant and included cries of distraction from the beautiful game from television viewers and worries galore that the technology would affect the players on the pitch. Such was the concern that UK public service broadcaster the BBC stepped in to tone down the level of images when it covered subsequent England matches.
So will the technology ever catch the imagination and hearts of the UK public? Undoubtedly so says Pardeep Saran, a senior partner at UK marketing agency Skyville that sells LED perimeter advertising for Team England soccer matches. "Just remember that when rotating advertising hoardings were introduced, we received a massive slap on the wrist and were told that no-one liked them. But within five years they became the norm. Within two to three years, LED advertising will become the norm too." Saran is fully-confident that European soccer federation UEFA will adopt LED perimeter advertising as a standard advertising mechanism in the future and cites the falling prices for rotating hoardings systems from around $800,000 to $80,000 as evidence that no-one wants them anymore.
Belgian visualisation company Barco is a leading manufacturer of LED screens in Europe. Koen Bossuyt, Barco's international sales and services manager for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, is convinced that LED screens are an investment that sports properties should be making and will eventually pay for themselves. "If you look at the business model in the US, the country is familiar with the concept of LED and having commercial actions around the screens including advertising messages and added value propositions for the spectators." Bossuyt has witnessed an increasing willingness in continental Europe to use LED technology. "They are going from 'nice to haves' to 'must haves'," he explains.
However, Saran believes the growth of LED perimeter advertising in the UK compared to its popularity in Spain for example has been held back by the nature of the country's soccer stadia. "UK grounds are technically the smallest in Europe and on the continent advertising hoardings are typically 1m high which is the height utilised by manufacturer ISO [International Sports Organisation] for LED technology. In the UK they are 0.6m high. While there is interest from many English Premier League clubs in LED advertising, they face having to remove perhaps the first three rows of seating in order to accommodate the higher screens that are required." Skyville had investigated using another supplier that could supply kit with 0.6m specifications but found that the screens collapsed when a ball hit them. (I wonder if darts would cause similar mayhem?) LED technology also works better during evening matches than daylight ones which is a problem when so many UK soccer matches kick-off around 3pm, compared to a plethora of evening matches in Spain. (The Real Betis match kicked off at 9.30pm local time which was more Cocoa than Bovril time for the UK contingent).
Taking the middle ground
While Saran considers that the full power of LED advertising can only be realised by harnessing all the movement and colour that the technology can offer, Skyville is willing to take the middle ground and to tone down the imagery when servicing the needs of broadcasters – for example the BBC – that are worried viewers will be far from bullish. "However, some clients try and push us to such an extreme that it almost isn't worth using LED," continues Saran. "The strength of this technology when used fully is that the movement adds to higher recall compared to static advertising and allows full information branding and messaging."
But how does Saran address concerns that the technology distracts the players and officials? "The players themselves have told me that it doesn't distract them. David Beckham said to me, 'Saran, what animation?' and Sven-Goran Eriksson [England soccer team manager] wasn't even aware that the technology was being used. Players are so focused on the actual game that it isn't a distraction, although they might be aware of it when they are warming up and play up to it."
LED advertising displays may have greater appeal in the US because they tend to be utilised during moments of down-time during sports such as basketball and ice hockey, rather than continuously during actual play. Animated advertising picks up when game play stops, although of course soccer is a more fluid sport than some of its American rivals and therefore the breaks less forthcoming.
The jury may well still be out in the UK on the future of LED advertising technology, but one can't help but think that a technology involving colour and moving imagery cannot fail to appeal to the web-surfing and video-gaming generation of new sports fans. Game on!
Rachael Church - Editor
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