When Kuala Lumpur International Airport’s (KLIA) operating company, Malaysian Airport Holding Berhad (MAHB), decided that the country’s aviation hub was in need of a visual update, local media company VGI Airports, a company part of VGI Malaysia, was selected to handle the project.
Nacho Perez, chief digital officer at VGI Malaysia, said: “For many years, VGI Airports has been the advertising concessionaire for KLIA. When the time came for the airport to upgrade, they decided to use the opportunity to develop a brand-new digital advertising platform.”
Perez continues: “My role during this process was to lead digital development including selecting the locations to be newly installed or upgraded, identifying the right technology and suppliers for the installation of the screens, and also taking care of maintenance, and content delivery, creation, and scheduling.”
After an exhaustive planning phase, the team decided that a digital overhaul was required throughout the airport; following the flow of passengers from the drop off area, through the check-in hall, immigration, and departures gates. A similar flow was needed in the opposite direction, from the arrival gates, through immigration corridors to the baggage carousels and, ultimately, the arrivals hall.
Perez said: “From the outset, it was clear that digital was the only way to move forward. It allows flexibility and precision, in order to display the relevant advertisements and messages to the right audience at the right time, using the right content.”
VGI decided to use a combination of LCD and LED technology, depending on the size of the screens and the idiosyncrasies of each location, and Perez’s primary choice for the latter was Absen. He said: “We only work with the best suppliers for every technology. That means selecting each supplier based on a combination of quality, reliability, support, and total cost of ownership. Absen’s LED technology ticked every box for us and their customer service was second to none throughout.”
VGI Airports selected a combination of Absen N4, Acclaim A2719, and A2725 for the installation, split into three different areas. In the arrivals area, Absen’s N4 created the ‘Digital Dream’ screen, a 400 square metres LED wall that boasts 23,976W x 1,008H resolution.
Absen’s A2719 was selected for the Satellite Digital Impact Network screen to cover both arrival and departures of international destinations. The same product was also used for full HD displays at check in area, while the Digital Arrivals Impact Network screen features a curved 7.3m x 2m (12 x 6 panels) A2725 LED wall strategically installed above the escalators for new arrivals.
Perez said: “LED allows us to build custom sizes to fit different areas and create some really immersive and seamless environments. Such was our commitment to this, that we ended up building the longest LED screen in an airport.”
The advertising content is displayed using one Advantech or Dell media server per screen, with the exception of the Digital Dream, and is created by each advertiser’s creative team. Any internal airport communications and other advertisements can be created by the in-house team, if necessary.
Perez said: “Our biggest obstacle during the installation was the fact that we were working in a functioning airport. KLIA is open 24/7 and is used by more than 165,000 passengers per day (over 60 million per year). As a result, installing over 1,000sqm of digital displays in more than 250 locations, without disrupting the service was a huge challenge. We overcame it by a deep and professional relationship with the airport operations team, primarily the engineering, security, and electrical departments. We also made sure that everyone on site during the installation, from suppliers to contractors, complied with the operating procedures as agreed with MAHB, the airport’s operator.”
He added: “Our technical team and the mechanical contractor in charge of the installation all received on-site training courtesy of Absen. We also had Absen technicians available to help, monitor, and check the products during the installation.”
VGI Airports ensured that the signage system would be reliable by including backup media players and sending boxes, as well as redundancy data cabling in case of failure.
The installation itself began in March 2019 and was completed by February 2020. Perez concluded: “Passengers appreciate arriving or departing an airport that is fully outfitted with digital displays. As well as looking more modern, the messages they show are more relevant and dynamic than they were before. Moreover, MAHB appreciates the new installations as they help to revamp the overall perception and ranking of KLIA into one of the best in class in Southeast Asia.”