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Advertisers have long sought ways to capture the attention of transit commuters who, collectively, are a huge group of bored travellers just looking for something to rest their eyes on. But for advertisers in an increasingly digital world, posters and glue just won't do.

Once restricted to static images of cars or scantily clad models, advertisers from London to Los Angeles are turning to a slew of new high-tech options to grab commuters' attention – some of which are being developed in Canada. Incorporating everything from wall-sized, motion-sensing displays on subway platforms to tube-like LED screens that can display videos in dark tunnels, marketing is become interactive.

From his office in Winnipeg, Mike Swistun can manually change the video ads playing in the Tube tunnel thousands of kilometres away running between Paddington Station and Heathrow Airport in London. Mr. Swistun is the chief executive officer of Sidetrack Technologies Inc., a company that has developed a unique marketing system that lights up dark subway tunnels with bright ads for Microsoft, Target or Honda.

Sidetrack's technology involves a system of 360 digital strips placed at intervals along a subway wall. When the train passes by at high speed, the strips blend together over a period of 15 seconds creating an artificial video, much like a high-tech flip book.

Prior to developing the LED strips, Sidetrack used paper posters lit by overhead lights to create the same effect, but the process required staff to go into the subways and change the posters manually.

“Where we used to have a billboard revenue model – selling to one advertiser for a block of time,” says Mr. Swistun, “... now we have the capability of doing time-of-day sales. So every train that goes through on a schedule becomes a sellable advertising time slot.”

Companies such as McDonald's, he says, can run Egg McMuffin ads in the morning and Big Mac ads in the afternoon rather than rely on unchanging posters to tempt travellers.

In addition to the Heathrow Express displays in London, Sidetrack's LED strips have been installed along the Los Angeles subway line and will soon make their debut in New York City. The company's older, paper-based technology is used by transit systems in San Francisco, Rio de Janeiro and Mexico City.

Subway riders constitute a valuable and captive audience for advertisers, according to Alan Middleton, a marketing professor with the Schulich School of Business at York University.

But it's the large numbers of young riders on subways – specifically high school and university students – that transit advertisers target. A notoriously difficult and skeptical demographic to reach, young people are more likely to be engaged by interactive ads, which is why advertisers are rapidly embracing technologically enhanced campaigns in subway stations at a rapid pace.

“That very interactivity, the sense that I can control the message is very much in keeping with the overall drive of younger consumers,” he said. “They're much more suspicious of passive media.”

Even the physical posters inside the trains are changing. In the summer of 2006, marketing firm BBDO Toronto developed a campaign for Pepsi that involved placing a headphone jack hooked up to a digital music player inside subway posters on the TTC. Commuters could plug their headphones into the outlet and listen to music available through Pepsi's online portal, Pepsi Access. It was the first time commuters had seen anything like it, prompting a great deal of exposure in the blogosphere.

“Let's face it, a lot of [advertising] isn't very interesting work,” says BBDO Toronto CEO Dom Caruso. “So clients that decide to use that medium and are prepared to do something that really will stand out can get great benefits from that because their money will work hard.”

But before the chimes ring and the doors of the subway slide open, advertisers are still trying to get the attention of commuters milling about on platforms, and that's becoming much easier thanks to motion-sensitive interactive displays developed by Toronto's GestureTek Inc.

Orlando, Fla.-based Monster Media has installed floor and wall projection displays that use GestureTek's technology in a number of U.S. subway stations, including New York's Grand Central Station. The technology allows commuters to manipulate advertisements with physical actions. One campaign in New York for Travelzoo Inc. shows a series of snow globes that reveal travel deals when subway riders “shake” the orbs by waving their hands in front the display.

GestureTek's Canadian partner, Mississauga's InTouch Media Group Inc., has held discussions with the Toronto Transit Commission and Montreal's STM to install similar systems. In the meantime, the company has deployed wall-sized screens in retail outlets such as the Hudson's Bay Co. department store in downtown Toronto and created custom floor and table displays for Cineplex Odeon and Jack Astor's, which have created a buzz in the advertising community.

Today, the company will announce a major deal with Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment Ltd. to set up a Toronto Maple Leafs and Toronto Raptors trivia wall in the Air Canada Centre.

For advertisers, the interactivity of displays such as the ones used by InTouch increase “dwell time” where consumers actually stop and interact with a display, which is music to the ears of brands looking to make an impression.

“If you can get someone to stop for a minute or even 30 seconds to notice your message, you've accomplished a lot,” says InTouch president David Leetham. “And that's what our clients are seeing.”