Plenty of Eyeballs, Plenty of Ads at New Terminal

Last week the Wall St. Journal reported on how a new terminal in London’s Heathrow Airport will be adding hundreds of screens in which to show ads to passing travelers. It’s all part of new revenue scheme at the airport’s fifth terminal.

“There will be more advertising here than in any airport in the world,”said the article. “From giant billboards overlooking security lines to television screens in the underground train station, the ads have been positioned in ways BAA hopes will make them impossible to avoid. There are 333 billboards or posters, along with 206 flat screen TV sets, which change ads to target specific flights.

Compare this to LAX, where there are only 34 advertising TV sets in the whole airport! At JFk, there are 40, says JCDeceaux, a Paris-based specialist in outdoor ads, and the people hired to wire up the new London terminal.

There are plenty of eyeballs to see the new ad screens: some 27 million people are expected to pass through the terminal in the first year, and a survey revealed another fact: The travelers have an average heart beat of 91 beats per minute, compared to 70 beats for a relaxed person.
“Highly aroused people are receptive to messages,” said Kevin Miller, Decaux’s head of research.