The out-of-home advertising market has received a major boost with the arrival of a new banner mounting system that does away with the hassles and hazards of using cherrypickers to attach banners to street poles.
Out-Stand-In, a Sydney-based family company specialising in sign stands and pole banner systems, has secured worldwide patents for its user-friendly Bannerconda and Bannerjib raise-and-display systems, which could see shorter display cycles become a reality.
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Agencies that place their major outdoors accounts on billboards, walls and LCD/LED displays, are taking a fresh look at banners, now that displaying them has become easy enough to replace content more frequently.
"It's increased banner production no end because it's taken that massive expense away from installing banners and removing them," says Lachlan McCudden, a director of Out-Stand-In.
The company was featured on the ABC TV program, The New Inventors, in 2007 and Bannerconda was judged best invention of that episode.
Located at Wahroonga in Sydney's northern suburbs, Out-Stand-In is run by Lachlan, Gail and Dean McCudden, who are directors of the ten year-old company.
Lachlan and Gail McCudden owned the first Photo Mini-Lab on Sydney’s North Shore, and later diverged into signage systems.
Out-Stand-In is a compact little company that outsources its various processes to a wide circle of manufacturers and suppliers around Sydney, maintaining strict quality control by assembling and installing the aluminium and stainless-steel display systems themselves.
The genius of Bannerconda is that it does not rely on raising a banner to a fixed arm on a pole, a tedious process riddled with OH&S issues, unless it is done properly - and that requires the logistics of a licensed cherrypicker driver/operator and crew, as well as pedestrian control and traffic permits.
"With Bannerconda, there's nothing that can break and there are few moving parts. We've designed it so that effectively anybody can assemble and use it," Lachlan states.
Instead of a fixed arm, Bannerconda uses a movable arm that raises and lowers for quick and easy changeovers from ground level. The conduit carries weights, cables and glides, and a concealed halyard. It attaches to metal or timber light poles by stainless steel bandit straps, uses Tek screws for non-electric poles, and customised attachment plates designed specifically for each style of aluminium multifunction pole. Chemset bolts or metal plates can be used to affix banners to masonry walls.
A rope stow box beneath the Bannerconda system is fixed to the pole, usually at 1.8m to 2m height above ground level, which is generally considered vandal- and theft-resistant.
The knock-on effect of making banner signage easy is an increased use of short-term banners, with some display periods as short as a weekend. It's an ideal scenario for McDonalds, a major client. The fast-food chain can promote its short-term specials over a number of days, then change the message, without the expense of a cherrypicker and crew.
"Councils can now take down their Christmas banners at the end of the festive season," notes Lachlan. "There's nothing more outdated than Christmas banners still being displayed many weeks later - and sometimes the banner material has been shredded by wind and other elements, giving an unsightly appearance."
"It came about because we were basically asked to service flagpoles and put banner systems up but we realised we needed long ladders and cherrypickers and we felt we needed to come up with something that was much easier for everybody to operate and didn't require the hiring of the equipment, which is becoming more expensive all the time," says Lachlan.
Out-Stand-In has also developed Bannerjib, a raise-and-display system for flagpoles that relies on a releasable banner arm that locks into a head which rotates 360 degrees in either direction – something that some in the industry still claim is an impossibility.
The Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority installed Bannercondas to replace their light-panel systems at The Rocks for short campaigns promoting tourism activities - and these can be seen from Circular Quay. Several displays at Sydney Olympic Park Authority’s Blaxland Park also use the Bannerconda technology.
Parramatta Stadium's sizeable parking area is creating public interest with multi-coloured banners on its lighting columns. The Trust commissioned the installation of Bannercondas as a direct result of a request from a major sponsor for additional advertising opportunities at their sports complex.
Out-Stand-In services banners for local councils in NSW and Queensland, and is hoping to expand into Victoria, after the system drew acclaim at last year's Victorian Local Government Association expo.
Bannerconda and Bannerjib have been approved by major NSW energy utilities, including Energy Australia, Integral Energy and Country Energy.
"Because of the way it operates, Bannerconda eliminates up to 40% of the pressure on the poles, giving them a longer life and making replacement less frequent than with fixed arms, so it's an added bonus for the infrastructure," says Lachlan.
Any council that already has approved conventional fixed arms to their poles should have no difficulty approving the new system.
All poles under the authority of Leichhardt and Burwood Councils carrying fixed banner arms, for example, have been replaced with the new Bannerconda systems, subject to engineers' reports on the poles' structural capacity. “It is a straightforward procedure,” says Dean McCudden.
Across the Tasman, Out-Stand-In represents the hardware division of Banner Media (NZ) Ltd, a tripartite consortium in which the one business entity will control hardware, banners and advertising. It will be promoted to local councils in a similar way to bus shelters. Initial projections indicate that for the same infrastructure investment as one bus shelter, 20 Bannercondas could yield up to five times more revenue.
"Whoever controls the systems will control the banners and the advertising," Dean says. "The ongoing revenue stream is quite impressive."
"We've got international patents spanning more than 20 years on all the products, including some for an internal system in multi-function poles. We're looking at acquiring international joint-venture partners in various countries."
One of their prime overseas targets is the 2012 London Olympics, where organisers are currently considering approaches, not only from UK hardware and banner manufacturers, but offshore makers as well, including Australia.
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Dean and Lachlan McCudden |
There are tips and tricks to making the most of a grouped banner display, such as an avenue of street banners. Users might need to adjust the positioning of Bannerconda systems on poles, so that the tops of all banners create a smooth line-of-sight, rather than reflecting the uneven terrain the poles may be embedded in. If such adjustments are to be made, energy providers' guidelines must still be adhered to.
"Out-Stand-In believes rows of banner displays make a high-impact showcase for a huge array of promotional material," says Lachlan.
Gail McCudden adds: “We believe that our systems have the potential to eventually see pole banners acknowledged as a new category in Out of Home advertising.”
Out-Stand-In
www.outstandinsignstands.com.au
