From a giant Cadbury's gorilla breathing down on passers-byat Dublin's Pearse Station to bus shelters converted into exotic beach huts urging commuters to spray Lynx all over them to stay fresh, the messages are arresting. Multi-dimensional, illuminated and interactive, there is no avoiding these posters with a difference on busy streets.

Categorised as part of the new ambient choice in outdoor media, the term now used in adland to describe these poster ideas is ‘specials'. They range from super-sized Erin rotating soup tins and a six-foot bottle of Jameson held by a fibreglass hand, to six sheets that dispense Aero bars and Polo mints and a 3D pinata on a 96 sheet for RTE.

Eclipse Media is a sequel to Eclipse Lighting, founded by Colin Doyle, an electrician who served his time in the Guinness brewery. From there, he did the wiring of nightclubs and lighting programming for theatre and concerts when dance music was all the rage. He handled Whelans of Wexford Street before moving on to lighting architectural jobs.

The name, Eclipse Lighting, came about by chance. While working on Gerry Gannon's Clongriffin Village shopping centre in north Dublin, Doyle had to source fibre-optic lighting from China, Spain and the US. When the last batch of lights arrived they had wrongly despatched eclipse lights, so he marked down ‘Eclipse Lighting' on the docket.

What sparked a move to advertising work was when Doyle got a call from JCDecaux about getting neon lighting for a campaign. He sold them some bulbs and did the job. He was later asked if he could recommend someone to do ‘a special'. But the person he put them in touch with failed to show up and so he volunteered his services – and hey presto.

Eclipse helped Kraft launch Ireland's first digital touch screen campaign on bus shelters. Commuters were invited to select and view ingredients for five different Philadelphia ‘Philly Heroes' recipes at a site on Charlotte Way/Harcourt Street. The interaction with consumers provided an email option, allowing Kraft to gather up valuable data.

“Digital is something we'd been working on for some time,” Doyle said, “we had a lot of ideas; it was just a case of ensuring the right quality.” DDFH&B-JWT extended the Kraft specials campaign with a bus shelter on Leeson Street featuring a large Philly tub on the roof and a contravision wrap. So how did the Cadbury's gorilla idea materialise?

“John Kilkenny at Publicis QMP is a very tuned-in guy,” Doyle said. “John, Dave Wright, myself and a few others had a meeting about Cadbury's. John wanted to develop a 3D face and we suggested putting in sound. As usual, it was a mix of ideas. That's what happens most of the time, even if we come up with the concept. It's a team effort.”

Eclipse sources all the material for a campaign and because they have their own spray shop and welding warehouse, 95 per cent of everything, from the mechanics to design, is produced in-house from scratch. Having this facility helps with quality control and allows them manage client expectation, with, time permitting, site visits available to clients.

Eclipse has faced little competition on the traditional special side. But with the growth in digital installations, Doyle may face a stronger challenge from UK operators. It is not something that keeps him awake at night as he claims they are already more expensive and if they were to set up shop in Dublin, it is likely their costs would escalate further.

Doyle said Eclipse quotes on digital jobs and they make “a reasonable margin – it's not a fortune”, but it is accessible to more people. In the UK, they work to either massive or modest client budgets – there is little middle ground – and pitches reflect this. As the Irish market is much tighter, it allows closer contact and room to negotiate deals.

Amanda Moran joined Eclipse around this time last year having worked in production in agencies. As business development manager, she now liaises with agencies and works on drumming up business and managing projects. The path to securing and executing contracts stretches from advertisers and their agencies, to contractors and specialists.

While it is hard to give an average price on a special campaign, costs tend to range from €1,800 to €5,500. The biggest single execution of specials in Ireland for one client was by Diageo for Carlsberg with over 20 sites. The Erin poster was the most demanding from an engineering perspective as a motor had to be hidden inside the rotating can.

The snow globes for Coca-Cola and Bulmers Christmas bus shelter campaigns also proved a little tricky. It meant Doyle and his production team of Noel Hickey, Andis Vaicikauskis and Maris Tregubenko had to design a ‘mini weather system' inside the globe to keep the air circulating and make sure the right pressure was maintained 24/7.

When the poster goes up, the team monitors everything. If Doyle's passion for the job is anything to go by, nothing is likely to obscure Eclipse's future success. He pays a lot of compliments to his team and the fact they “buy into everything” and are happy to offer ideas on what can be done to improve a job – even when things are at their busiest.

TUB ON TOP The Kraft Philadelphia bus shelter site on Dublin's Leeson Street. Eclipse also installed the ‘Philly Heroes' recipe digital bus shelter at the junction of Charlotte Way and Harcourt Street. The site was Ireland's first digital touch screen outdoor campaign.

Sometimes the work requires long hours to allow everything go up in the one cycle. “Last Christmas there was one week when one of the guys did a record 127 hours,” Doyle said. “I put in 119 hours that week. The last thing we'll ever do is say ‘ah, we'll come back tomorrow'. Just get it up. The client is paying a lot of money for the poster and media.”

Eclipse has lost money on jobs, simply because unexpected issues arose and the contract turned out to be more complicated that they had envisaged at the start. But Doyle is adamant that even if they encounter unforeseen problems with the special they must take the hit and allow the original quote stand. Luckily, it does not happen too often.

Not surprisingly, Dublin is the busiest city for specials, followed by Cork, Belfast, Galway, Derry, Limerick and Waterford. While there are no dedicated trade shows for specials overseas, Doyle and Moran keep an eye out for digital expos showcasing technical advances, for example new developments in electroluminescence (EL).

Moran said the idea is that Eclipse should be a one-stop shop for specials innovation, from 2D and 3D builds to scented guerilla marketing, dispenser units, scented marketing and mobile light projections. She has seen a big upsurge in interest for LED digital screens, touch screens and text-activated specials allowing data collection from consumers.

Moran pointed to a campaign in Australia called ‘Stop Child Abuse Now'. Childlike mannequins were used with a white poster over the top of the mannequin and the legs and feet sticking out below. The message read ‘Neglected children are made to feel invisible'. When the mannequin was removed the line ‘Thank you for seeing me' showed up.

An art graduate, Moran keeps a close watch on poster ideas near and far. She helped develop the company website and regularly posts the latest Eclipse news on Twitter. Her experience from working in agencies like Chemistry and Dialogue stands to her and Doyle relies on superlatives to describe her abilities and enthusiasm for the job.

Eclipse created a rotating special on top of Luas columns for the cinema release of Green Lantern. The brief was for white lighting but when they looked at it and played around with it, they felt a green hue would look much better. “It's a learning process all the time,” Doyle said, “rarely does a special start and finish the way it was first planned.”

Turnover has increased every year since 2006. This year, Doyle predicts figures to be up again, “perhaps up by 1.7 times on last year”. By the end of next year, the specials market may peak with any growth being in digital. Eclipse will unveil some “exciting” new developments soon but for now Doyle is remaining tight-lipped about the details.

DICE WORK Colin Doyle's Eclipse designed and installed specials for RTE.