Digital marketing is an apt description for how the developers of Station Square - a bold, new residential and commercial community in the Metrotown area of Burnaby, Canada – are presenting and promoting the project to prospective customers and members of the public who will visit and patronize the many retail, commercial, entertainment and cultural locations and events Station Square will offer.

In its vibrant and engaging sales center in Station Square, Anthem, with its partner The Beedie Group, has installed two large video walls from Planar. On these video walls, visitors can see a dramatic rendering of the entire Station Square project, and also use a touch feature on the displays to navigate through the project, explore the many residential and retail opportunities available, see all nearby locations of interest, even learn the distances and travel times from Station Square/Metrotown to downtown Burnaby, the Vancouver airport and elsewhere.
Planar displays seen as a reliable, compelling communication solution

As Station Square is planned for development over a 10-year period, Anthem wanted a video wall that would perform reliably over the period, would be free of service and maintenance issues, and would present its content to viewers in a compelling manner.

On the recommendations of its systems integration partner, Eos Lightmedia Corporation of Vancouver, BC Planar® PS-Series™ and Planar® EP-Series™ LCD displays were selected for the sales center. They were installed in the fall of 2012, in time to celebrate the first of the six Station Square towers to open, as well as the opening of initial elements of the walkable street-level village of shops, restaurants and other retail establishments.

"Station Square is a landmark development and a dramatic addition to the Burnaby landscape," says Greg Zayadi, Director Sales and Marketing at Anthem Properties . "The Planar displays are central in our efforts to market this project and create ongoing interest in it among a wide range of constituents."

Planar PS-Series delivers exceptional image quality and operational reliability

In the Anthem sales center, one Planar video wall is a four-wide-by-four-high (4 x 4) array of Planar PS-Series 46" displays (PS4652). Anthem chose this product for its big video wall in order to make a big impact with the architectural rendering of the entire Station Square project.

The video wall delivers on that requirement in several ways including its image quality and management. The Planar PS-Series displays were engineered with full 1080P HD resolution and 500 cd/m2 brightness. "Image clarity and colors are fantastic. As a result, the rendering of the project makes a big impact on viewers," says Shaun August of Eos Lightmedia. Further, the Planar PS4652 was engineered from the ground up to operate 24/7, it provides both manual and automatic backlight control, and consumes just 36 watts of power. "These features are important because the wall must be operational up to 16 hours a day, the picture must be perfect under different lighting conditions, and the customer needs to keep its energy costs within targeted limits," he adds.

Planar EP-Series offers Multi-Touch interactivity

The sales center's second video wall is a two-wide-by-four-high (2 x 4) configuration of Planar® EP-Series™ large-format professional LCD displays. In addition to providing a full array of connectivity (including HDI-DSI) and control options, and high brightness performance (700 nits), the Planar EP-Series is also equipped with multi-touch technology.

"This interactivity is really important," says Anthem's Zayadi, "because it further helps draw people into the center and allows them to navigate through different areas of the project according to their interests."

Planar video walls are an important marketing tool

Zayadi says that between the Planar PS-Series and the Planar EP-Series, Anthem and Beedie have technology that allows them to stand out in the highly competitive Vancouver real estate market. "This is one of our most important marketing tools. It lets us put our best foot forward today and gives us the flexibility to do so much more going forward."