Mirror, Mirror: Interactive Backlits that Brand in
the Most Unexpected Places
Corporate brands are constantly pushing the limits of the final frontiers of
branding. This is especially true in challenging economic times when brands
must transcend mere awareness in favor of adoption.
Enter LuxuryTec, a company focused on creating unique brand sales
presentations that has created a backlit advertising product for restroom
mirrors. The hook in these mirrors is a sensor that changes each mirror in a
restroom from a mirror image of the patron to a colorful backlit brand
advertisement.
LuxuryTec's modular and interconnected, interactive mirrors change from a
backlit ad printed on LexJet 7 Mil Absolute Backlit to a regular mirror as a
person approaches it.
When someone moves within range of the sensor, which can be adjusted to
change between one and five feet, it becomes a mirror. When they move away
and outside the sensor’s range, the mirror changes back to a backlit ad or
promotion.
What follows is exactly the type of brand adoption LuxuryTec and its clients,
typically venues like sports arenas, are after: the viewer becomes an active and
interactive participant in the brand itself. Once confronted with the magic
mirror, it becomes very difficult to ignore and demands another look. Click here
to see a promotional video dramatizing the effect the mirrors have on a sports
fan visiting the restroom with the LuxuryTec mirrors installed.
“We know that people are guaranteed to do two things at a sporting event: go
to their seat and visit the restroom. By providing our partners, the venue, with
venue-specific impression numbers, we are assisting them with the sale to their
sponsors. This new advertising medium has provided venues with a product
they can offer to their sponsors that is sure to reach every attendee in the
venue,” explains Brian Reid, founder and president of LuxuryTec. “This allows
sponsors and brands to match up their specific product with the attendees at
the events. Most large or global consumer brands all have products that are
strategically marketed to reach different customers, so if Monday night is a
basketball home game, Coke will showcase Diet Coke and Sprite, for instance.
Then if Tuesday night is Disney on Ice they’ll run Vitamin Water, Monster
Energy drink on Wednesday night for UFC, and so forth.”
Reid adds that combining demographic metrics with data that shows event
patrons visit the restroom an average of 1.56 times per two and half hours
provides the venue and its sponsors with a compelling reason to take
advantage of the space, especially when the space engages the senses
interactively.
“Industry-leading brands are not necessarily spending less money, but they are
taking a more laser focused approach to who they want to reach with their
spending,” says Reid. “We’ve engineered the mirror in such a way that the
images can be changed easily and frequently, based on the event and the
demographics of that event. It’s a pretty simple business model. We take out
the old mirrors, install our modular mirrors, and provide the venue with a
digital template to pass on to their sponsors for the creative. They put the art
into the template, push it back to us, and we print it and ship it to the facility
within 48 hours. They then take the face of the mirror off, and insert the new
backlit substrate.”
The proprietary mirror systems utilize acrylic instead of glass for the mirror
itself, a thin lighting system to backlight the material, and LexJet 7 Mil Absolute
Backlit for the print media. The units are typically leased to the facility or venue
for three years.
“As part of our presentation we try and highlight how memorable the mirror
product is versus other advertising platforms currently utilized by large brands
today. We might ask people who their favorite baseball team is, and working
from left to right field, to name the sponsors currently represented on the
outfield walls. They can usually come up with two or three, and in most
ballparks there is a minimum of ten. Sponsors pay hundreds of thousands of
dollars each to be on those walls,” says Reid. “But, if you see an interactive
image on a mirror, could you tell me who was on the mirror a month from
now?”