Hong Kong is well known for its splendid night view, what with its great number of colorful billboards and the various forms of graphics on the taxis threading their way through the city's cramped roads.

Hong Kong Taxis Bearing 3-D Signs

Hong Kong is well known for its splendid night view, what with its great number of colorful billboards and the various forms of graphics on the taxis threading their way through the city's cramped roads. Whereas in Korea, digital graphics are mostly applied only on taxi doors, this is not so in Hong Kong. Here are the most outstanding vehicle advertisements in Hong Kong. Outdoor Advertising Paradise Although Hong Kong was already returned to China on July 1, 1997, the city has maintained its distinctive features. Fortunately, its unique colors have not disappeared, contrary to what many people from all over the world feared. This cosmopolitan Asian city is regarded as an outdoor advertising paradise. It is packed with outdoor ads, among them, large billboards in the center of roads, which attract drivers' eyes. This environment results from Hong Kong's distinctive sign culture. Despite their different colors and sizes, however, all the signs in the city seem to be in good order. Hong Kong's unique signages have developed into moving advertising, using state-of-the art technology. Companies running two-story buses, which are among the city's attractions, have tried to make the most use of outdoor advertising to attract regular passengers. Trolley cars also carry funny, outstanding ads. The third mode of public transportation in the city, taxis, rush from place to place with unique graphics mounted on them. High Impact of Outdoor Advertising Easy Group, Ltd., an Estate Development company, first designed and introduced the three-dimensional (3D) advertising system on taxis in Hong Kong in 2002. Before this, however, it made an extensive investigation on the impact of taxi advertising in the city. The company came to the conclusion that taxi advertising would have a significant impact in Hong Kong, the streets of which are highly congested, what with the city's large 6.8 million population for an area of only 1,100 sq. meters. According to a research by AC Nielsen, 94% of the people in Hong Kong consciously looked at outdoor ads last month and 66%-or four million people-spend 30 minutes everyday looking at outdoor ads. Geographic Features Allowing for Taxi Advertising Hong Kong is one of the world's cities where taxi transportation is well-developed, which may be attributed to the city's geographical features that make taxis the most convenient public transportation for people who want to travel to every nook and cranny. More than 90% of Hong Kong's people-over 1,300,000 people on the average-ride taxis daily. According to Hong Kong's Ministry of Transportation, about 18,000 taxis are plying the city's streets today. Among them, the thousand or so taxis of Easy Group, Ltd. stand out, due to the outdoor ads that they carry. Easy Group's Hung Tomas says, "Unlike other modes of transportation, taxis could operate round the clock. As such, taxi ads could be exposed to the public for 24 hours straight. Moreover, their range of exposure is much larger than other transport systems such as subways and buses." He adds, "We have spent two years in developing high-class taxi advertising technology, abiding by the government's rules and building communications networks with our taxi drivers." Ad rates for taxis vary depending on the type of advertising. For 3D and wrapping graphics, production and installation on taxis cost US$250, and ad carrying costs US$200 a month. If the ad will be installed only on the light box, the cost of production and installation and the ad-carrying rate will be much lower. We are curious as to whether or not Hong Kong's sign codes, of which we know there are many in the city, allow taxi ads. Easy Group, Ltd., however, is letting government officials thereat know that it uses only safe materials and substrates for its taxi ads.