New Order’s first studio release since 2001 and big commercial push in almost a decade, Waiting for the Siren’s Call — with the exception of adding Billy Corgan as an occasional member — doesn’t alter one of the most distinctive sounds in pop. Promotions for Siren allowing fans to download songs and other content to their cell phones and iPods from street and subway posters places this classic ’80s band back in the vanguard, as if MIDI synthesizers had just been invented.
This advertising campaign, running only in London, England, and New Order’s now-gentrified but once-post-industrial hometown of Manchester, is the first ever to employ interactive posters incorporating a new technology called Hypertag, developed by a Cambridge, U.K., company of the same name.
“The Hypertag is a small box, usually fitted just behind the poster,” Alister Thompson of Hypertag said. “It can be placed anywhere around the display, although the best place for the infrared version is at around waist height, making it easy for most users.”
The tiny Hypertag itself — as in playing a game of tag between devices — is battery-powered. A Bluetooth version of the Hypertag that removes constraints on where the display is placed is also available.
Most remarkable is the fact that users need not pre-load any software onto their mobile devices. Content users access while interfacing with the poster resides on a server. Hypertag works much like a relay device, transferring content from the server to the Hypertag, and then to the personal device.
For advertisers trying to reach savvy consumers in a cluttered environment, the user-initiated experience fulfills once-skeptical prophecies foretold in Seth Godin’s book “Permission Marketing.” “We also have a wearable version that field marketers use. This was recently used by mobile network company O2 at a Westlife concert and a Six Nations rugby game in Dublin,” Thompson said.
Dr. John Winn, a Microsoft Fellow at Darwin College in Cambridge, came up with the concept for the device in 1999. Nick Hardy and Rachel Harker, undergraduate engineering students of Dr. Winn, became Hypertag company founders a year later while sitting at a pub with their professor.
Britain’s National Endowment for Science and Technology and the Arts provided the initial venture capital for the company because part of the intended purpose was for use in museum exhibits and public information campaigns. “Galleries are transformed into multimedia experiences,” Thompson said. Instead of museums stocking hand-held computers, visitors can use their own PDA or cell phone to access commentary, video or additional text about an exhibit.
The Brooklyn Museum in Brooklyn, N.Y., is the first American institution to purchase Magus Guide, software designed specifically for visitor attractions employing Hypertag. Students walking through an exhibit will be able to access video from a current dig or bookmark tags of additional online information that can then be transferred to a home computer.
Among several points, a device can sense and separate crossing signals, then ask the user to choose which content to view. Next-generation Hypertag boxes will allow content providers to transmit real-time information.
According to Thompson, New Order’s campaign, which launches a week before the U.K. release on March 28, is the first time Hypertags have been used in a retail environment. In mid-July, New Order’s label, Warner Brothers, plans to implement interactive movie-poster campaigns at 20 U.K. cinemas.
