WO1994008328A1

WO1994008328A1 - Advertising devices

Info

Publication number: WO1994008328A1
Application number: PCT/GB1993/002063
Authority: WO
Inventors: Simon Marzell
Original assignee: Floormedia Limited
Priority date: 1992-10-05
Filing date: 1993-10-05
Publication date: 1994-04-14
Also published as: ZA937356B; GB9220908D0; AU5152093A

Abstract

Advertising devices are described which are adhered to a floor. A printed advertisement is encapsulated within a layered structure, the upper layer(s) of the structure being transparent or translucent to enable the printed advertisement to be discerned and the layer(s) below the printing being adhered to the surface of the floor. The device may include means for generating sound and/or light to enhance its effectiveness. Such devices can be used very effectively in supermarket aisles to promote sales.

Description

ADVERTISING DEVICES

This invention relates to advertising and particularly to articles designed to display an advertising message to consumers.

For many years a major form of advertising has been the advertising poster, conventionally made by printing on paper and pasting the paper onto a wall or hoarding. Such advertising has been shown to be a successful medium by which manufacturer's products may be promoted and sold.

In like fashion, it is common practice to provide for use as display advertising within retail outlets, posters or placards which can be fixed to the wall, front of a counter or the like to promote a particular product. The efficacy of these may be diminished by visual clutter.

In all of these cases, the general plane of the advertising (which is normally two-dimensional anyway) is a vertical plane. Considering, however, a retail outlet, for example a supermarket, it is immediately clear that as well as the generally vertical surfaces to which advertising media has been traditionally affixed, there are two normally visually uncluttered other surfaces, the floor and the ceiling.

Placing an advertisement on a ceiling is inconvenient and in any event people generally tend not to look up. The nearest approach to using the ceiling as an advertising media support is that of suspending advertisement cards or placards at strategic points. Such cards or placards are in vertical planes.

Floor mounted advertisements have been suggested in the past. For example, European patent speci ication 479697 discloses a horizontal information apparatus comprising a box with a cover which may be internally illuminated and which may thus provide a floor level horizontal plane advertising display. The box must of course be set into the floor so that its surface lies flush with the floor surface. However, the capital investment and maintenance requirements of such devices are very substantial and their use is inflexible.

We have now found that if care is taken in their manufacture and presentation, floor mounted advertising devices may be provided which are easy to install, flexible in operation and effective in promoting an advertising message.

According to a first feature of the present invention there is provided, adhered to a floor, an advertising device comprising a printed advertisement encapsulated within a layered structure, the upper layer(s) of the structure being transparent or translucent to enable the printed advertisement to be discerned and the layer(s) below the printing being adhered to the surface of the floor.

Such an advertising device may be located in a wide variety of retail and other locations to give substantial visual impact and provide an effective advertising message.

Generally speaking, the advertising device of this invention will have a vertical dimension which is relatively small but consistent with the clearly desirable requirement of being able to stand up to the wear which anything adhered to a floor can be expected to encounter, but the dimension should be as small as possible consistent with adequate performance. The overall layer structure can be very thin if appropriate materials are used, e.g. 0.2 to 0.6 mm thick. The maximum vertical dimension is limited by safety considerations, generally to 3 to 4 mm, and can be considered to lie at most at around 5 mm.

In order likewise to render the advertising device long- lasting it is desirable to ensure that the transparent or translucent upper layer(s) , which may be a preformed film laminated onto the print or may be on a coating over the print, through which the printed advertising may be seen, is formed of a hard wearing material. It is found that a transparent grade of PVC, generally one containing a relatively low quantity of plasticiser, forms an adequately wear resistant layer. An alternative such layer is of polycarbonate plastics.

Preferably, the transparent or translucent layer is of such a thickness and quality that the device will meet the normal standards set for flooring materials. For example the uppermost layer of the advertising device should be such that the entire structure has a residual indentation value exceeding the standard set out in British Standard BS 3261 A or equivalent ISO standard. The materials used to make the advertising device of the invention should also be such as to conform to smoke emission regulations which are specified for flooring materials.

The uppermost layer should also be one which does not soil too easily. For this reason, it is preferred to include an anti-static ingredient in the material of the uppermost layer and it may also include conventional additives to impart high stain resistance. It is also useful to incorporate a bacteriostat. An additional or alternative approach to combat soiling of the upper layer is to provide that the upper layer has a plurality of thin separable sublayers, each of which may be cleanly peeled from the underlying ones. For example, four thin foils may be laminated on top of a PVC or polycarbonate upper layer, each of which is designed to be peeled off at the end of the week, for an advertisement designed to have a floor life of five weeks. Such foils are each only a small fraction of the thickness of the PVC or polycarbonate foil, the limiting thickness being set by the need for the film to be peelable away. A further alternative is to apply over the device, as a final manufacturing step, a coating of proprietary polymer floor sealant, e.g. of metallised emulsion polish type.

Another important characteristic for flooring materials, particularly plastics flooring materials, is slip resistance. This should desirably be high, for safety reasons, but if a suitably high figure is achieved by embossing or texturing the surface, care should be taken that this is not effected to such a degree as adversely to effect the appearance of the advertising print.

The printing forming the advertisement may be effected by printing onto an appropriate substrate, of which a suitable plastics film is the preferred one. Obviously the advertisement should be printed onto a plastics film using printing inks compatible with that film and designed to adhere well thereto so that there is no risk of delamination between the print and the backing on which the print sits as a result of mechanical "working" of the structure of the advertising device when people stand on it or walk over it. If appropriate inks are used, the advertisement may be printed on to the underside of the transparent or translucent layer(s), but this is generally less preferred. A wide variety of printing inks may be used, including fluorescent types for enhanced visual impact. Any suitable printing method, e.g. screen printing or rotogravure, may be used as desired to form the printed advertisement. Xerographic image application methods may also be used, as can non-impact systems such as ink-jet and bubble- et.

The printed advertisement can be made up of an image which is then overprinted or coated with a plain contrasting background.

The advertising device of the present invention is conveniently made by laminating several layers together or by building up a layered structure by coating layers onto an appropriate base structure. A preferred layer structure for use in practising the present invention is accordingly one consisting of an uppermost PVC transparent wear coat, usually 0.2 to 0.6 mm thick, and most preferably about 0.3 mm thick, on top of a printed PVC layer which itself is on top of a plastics sub-base. Between the plastics sub-base and the floor is a layer of adhesive.

The layer of adhesive may of course be applied by hand when it is desired to locate the advertising in position, but it is particularly preferable to present the advertising device (and this constitutes a further feature of the present invention) in the form of a layered structure including opposite the transparent or translucent layer(s) through which the advertisement is designed to be viewed, a layer of a tacky adhesive covered until required for use by an appropriate foil which can be peeled away to expose the tacky surface of the adhesive layer. Suitable cover foils for peeling away in this fashion and suitable adhesives are known and can be selected without difficulty. Those adhesives are preferred which are highly resistant, once the unit is adhesed to a floor, to sideways shear. These tend to perform better in practical situations, and to give advertisements which are not prone to lateral shifting, even in heavily trafficked areas.

While the adhesive may be of a very highly adhesive permanent nature, it is in some cases also desirable to provide an adhesive composition which may be cleanly peeled from the floor, if it is desired to remove the advertising device from its location, i.e. the adhesive is one which leaves no or little residue behind on the floor. This can be particularly useful where the advertisement has a limited time period of effectiveness.

Irrespective of the type of adhesive used, but particularly of importance when the device is adhered to the floor by the use of hand applied adhesive, is that the adhesive should be formulated to provide a safe working environment for the installer. For this reason, water-based adhesives are preferred, as there is then no danger to personnel from organic solvent vapours.

The size of advertising device in accordance with the present invention may vary. Generally speaking the smallest practical size for a floor mounted advertisement is around 30 cm by 30 cm and the largest practical size for most purposes around 100 by 200 cms. The device may theoretically be of any shape, though most conveniently for many applications the device will be rectangular in shape. It is desirable that any angular overall shape has rounded corners and it may also be preferable in certain situations to have the edges of the layered structure chamfered. Both rounding the corners and chamfering the edges reduces the risk of any part of the unit becoming detached from the floor to which it is adhered.

The units may also include other features designed to enhance their visual appeal. For example it is possible to incorporate effectively two dimensional light generating units in such advertising units, either of an incandescent or semi-conductor light emitting type, for example of the types disclosed in UK Patent Specifications 2222484A and 2233139A. The power source for such light emitting devices may be external but this is not preferred as it makes installation of the device more laborious. Instead, a planar power source such as a flat layer battery cell or a flat silicon light-to- electrical power unit, a so-called solar cell, may be incorporated.

Another alternative is to include within the structure a printed image in an ink which fluoresces when exposed to ultra violet radiation and to locate e.g. at a position appropriately adjacent an area of floor bearing the device of the invention, a source of UV light. Other eye catching devices such as holograms may also be incorporated.

In a further development of the invention, the uppermost layer of the device may be lenticular and the printed advertisement consist of a series of strip images coordinated to the lenticular texture in such fashion that three-dimensional or simulated movement effects may be achieved, thereby further enhancing the visual impact of the device.

In yet a further development, the device may include a flat microcircuit, power source and sound generator, and a pressure switch to actuate the same. Such flat circuits with power source and sound generator are known and have been incorporated into greetings cards. Used in the device of the present invention they can be actuated by someone walking on the device and actuating the pressure switch. The sudden noise from about the persons feet directs attention downwards and the walker thus sees the advertising message in a very positive way. In place of a pressure switch, a proximity switch of other type could be used. The noise can be a "beep" or, e.g. an advertising message from a voice synthesis chip. The invention is illustrated by way of example as follows:

EXAMPLE

A sheet of transparent PVC film 0.3 mm thick is printed on one side with an advertisement, in reverse, using printing ink(s) suited for printing on to PVC. A similar size sheet of white PVC film 0.6 mm thick is then heat- laminated on to the side of the transparent film bearing the printed image. The white film is then coated with a layer of adhesive (of water-based emulsion type) and the adhesive allowed to dry to a permanently tacky film. A sheet of release paper was applied to the adhesive surface and the unit then trimmed to final shape. This was then easily transported to the desired advertising site in a supermarket.

Once the display area had been selected, the floor area was cleaned and given a coat of proprietary floor gloss, so that it presented a clean even surface. The device was then taken, the release paper peeled back from one edge, the edge laid on to the floor where desired and the entire sheet of release paper then peeled back from underneath the layer structure to allow it to contact the floor. It was rolled down with a standard flooring roller to ensure firm and even adhesion. The overall height of the device above the floor surface came to about 1.4 mm.

Claims

An advertising device comprising, adhered to a floor, a printed advertisement encapsulated within a layered structure, the upper layer(s) of the structure being transparent or translucent to enable the printed advertisement to be discerned and the layer(s) below the printing being adhered to the surface of the floor.

2. An advertising device according to Claim 1, wherein the layered structure is a multi-layered laminate based on polymeric materials, the transparent or translucent layer(s) being formed of a relatively low plasticised polyvinyl chloride film.

3. An advertising device according to Claim 1 or 2, wherein the external periphery of the layered structure has rounded corners and/or chamfered edges.

4. An advertising device according to any of Claims 1 to 3 and including means for emitting light.

5. An advertising device according to any of Claims 1 to 4 and including means for emitting sound.

6. An advertising device according to any of Claims 1 to 5 and including a plurality of very thin peeloff layers at its upper surface.

7. An advertising device according to any of Claims 1 to 5 wherein the uppermost layer is lenticular and the printing of the advertisement is coordinated thereto to provide an enhanced visual effect,