LFP - Large-Format-Printing
Who wants to be reached, goes outside
Wednesday 01. December 2010 - The Dutch company PK Media focuses on outdoor advertising. Local and regional advertisers turn to the company for the whole package: from advising to the realization of projects. Advertising in bus shelters, on bus stops, on lampposts and on 20m² billboards is the core business of the company. Creative projects are also their cup of tea. PK Media has already won several international awards with this kind of projects.
PK Media’s vision can be summarized in four sentences: Who wants to be heard, has to tell. Who wants to be seen, has to show him. Who wants to be understood, has to understand the other. Who wants to be reached, has to go outside. That’s why the company is convinced that outdoor advertising the most optimal form of advertising is; it’s informative and it’s always noticed, even without the passer-by having to make an effort. PK Media addresses local and regional advertisers and offers a complete solution: from advise and design, to production, placement and maintenance of advertisements. Today, the company mainly produces advertising on lampposts. Bas Schuring, Production Manager of PK Media: “Pleun Klootwijk founded the company in the year 2000. Back then, advertising in bus shelters was our most important source of income. We exploited bus shelters in 90 cities and took care of the production and placement of the posters for these shelters. Because of logistical reasons, we had to scale down this form of advertising, but we’ve found a worthy substitute in advertising on lampposts. Opposite to the early years, we now produce everything ourselves. We have a Roland SC-545 for some years now and we print all our advertising with this machine. The printer is so easy to use that even my mother would be able to make a print if I would ask her to. Another big advantage is the machine’s reliability: it has been producing for many years now, without major problems.”
PK Media has already won several international awards. In 2007, the company won its first Fespa Award for the sticker wall in the museum de Kunsthal’ in Rotterdam. Bas Schuring made the stickers for this glass wall as part of an exhibition on dinosaurs. “The 5 by 25 meter wall was covered completely with an image of the jungle. We used transparent foil that let daylight trough, which created a very nice effect. This way, the contact with the garden could be kept. The jury of the Fespa Awards was very thrilled with this project and rewarded us with the golden price. We also won a Mactac Award for this project”, explains Bas Schuring. PK Media has won a second Fespa Award with a totally different project. To be precise, the company developed a cover for the back of Philippe Starck chairs. The chairs are part of a marketing campaign for a new label of clothes and are used in the dressing rooms of the shops that sell the clothes. Schuring printed the designs mirrorwise on vinyl and applied the prints on the backside of the transparent back of the chairs. The designs used for the covers were also used on the clothes, so the link between the clothes and the chairs became clear. The prints were produced on removable material so they can be switched every season. In the meanwhile, already 50 of these chairs are in circulation.
PK Media is convinced that outdoor media will remain an important medium, despite of evolutions in online advertising. “It’s becoming more and more difficult to obtain licenses for advertising on lampposts, but that doesn’t mean that it will disappear. Outdoor advertising remains a very effective form of advertising and people are used to advertising on the streets. Moreover, we keep discovering new outdoor advertising opportunities. Shortly, we started with advertising on taxis and we’ve already registered our first orders. I’m sure that this will give us fresh inspiration for new advertising media”, says Bas Schuring.