Title	MORGAN STANLEY 'DIGITAL SIGNAGE'
Brand	MORGAN STANLEY
Product/Service	DATA LED DISPLAY
Category	A02. Creative Innovation (incl. business solutions in association with a brand or creative campaign)
Entrant Company	FRAMESTORE London, UNITED KINGDOM
Advertising Agency	FRAMESTORE London, UNITED KINGDOM
Media Agency	BLOOMBERG New York, USA
Production Company	FRAMESTORE London, UNITED KINGDOM

Name	Company	Position
Robin Carlisle	Framestore	Installation Director
Jonny Dixon	Framestore	Producer
Tom Schwarz	Framestore	Interactive Developer
Chris Rayner	Framestore	Interactive Developer
Tuomo Rinne	Framestore	Interactive Developer
Beren Lewis	Framestore	Systems Lead
Grace Diggens	Framestore	Line Producer
Adam Sargent	Framestore	Content Line Producer
Paul Martin	Framestore	Project Engineer

The Brief

The challenge was to update the signage surrounding Morgan Stanley’s iconic New York office in the heart of Times Square. With the location attracting high and varied footfall, it was important for the content to be both impactful and informative; Morgan Stanley wanted to not only appeal to the financial clients but also to the everyday passerby. It was also important to be able to display a feed of breaking news, market data and ever-changing currency as well as a range of graphics, text and video formats. The previous screens had been in place for over 20 years, and although the amber ticker visual was well-known, the technology behind it was extremely limited and did not allow the bank to adapt its content with ease. In a Times Square location in particular, it is necessary to stay fresh and relevant, to cut through the neon noise of neighbouring buildings. The hardware refresh had been planned for some time; however a content solution and infrastructure was needed.

We created hand-coded multiple dynamic templates to display current market data which would draw on information from over 15 world markets. A content management system was also built for the bank, allowing Morgan Stanley to select the most important breaking news and price shifts internally, and manage it across the seven screen set-up. Working with partner company Bloomberg, as the creative agency, we developed an innovative graphical display, highlighting three main US commodities. The barrel screens were split into 5 different dynamic levels, displaying the average cost of the commodity in an instantly visual way. The team also created a specialised multiple-layered redundancy system, to ensure that if one player was to fail, another would automatically take over almost instantaneously - important for a high-impact site such as Times Square.

The finished dynamic content displays are visually stunning, delivering both information and entertainment to the neon sidewalks of Times Square. For clients and members of the public alike, Morgan Stanley are able to showcase their credentials, and demonstrate their capabilities in a new and exciting way. By mixing more traditional stock data with their technology-based Blue Papers, and reinventing commodities data in dazzling graphics, Morgan Stanley demonstrate their innate knowledge of, and interest in, the modern markets, which in turn are made applicable to a wider audience. The content templates will continue to evolve and adapt, building out to include more commodities, more projects, new markets. The content management infrastructure is complete, and passes to the internal team, who now have full control of the screens, with sustained support from the designers.