After three years in development and an investment of several hundred thousand dollars, Urban Outdoor Trans Ad is getting ready to launch a proprietary new out-of-home media management system.

The new system uses electronically encoded bar codes to match each poster to its allocated advertising frame.

Ron Hutchinson, president of the Toronto-based transit advertising supplier, says bar coding will not only shorten the time in which a campaign can be delivered, but also provide advertisers and agencies with proof of installation.

There are more than 70,000 individual transit posters in Toronto and he says installing and maintaining them is a big, labor-intensive job. A subway campaign, for example, may involve as many as 3,500 posters.

Each of the company’s installers will be provided a hand-held unit that will issue instructions telling them exactly which posters to install in which buses and subway cars, says Hutchinson.

‘They will also be able to quickly check what’s in the car and therefore replace anything that has been stolen or damaged,’ he says.

Ads both going in and coming out will be scanned. At the end of his or her night shift, the installer then downloads the information to the Urban Outdoor Trans Ad office, where it will appear on the screens of the sales staff the next morning. They will then be able to tell clients exactly what has been delivered.

‘Prior to the development of this system, we had great difficulty tracking all these things and we delivered 105% on any campaign to ensure we met the contracted level,’ says Hutchinson.

The bar code technology is the final piece in the company’s new operating system that has largely eliminated the need for paper.

Business is now handled on-line at all stages: from the initial proposal to generating a contract, to checking and booking space, to getting approvals, to issuing production quotes, to tracking of production.

Hutchinson says other companies have already expressed interest in the new system, and a group from Australia has already been to Canada to see whether it can be adapted to meet their needs.