It didn’t take long for a whole raft of press releases claiming some form of credit, or involvement with the World’s Largest Advertising Screen [1] to start flooding in.
Whilst the billboard, built by Vornado Realty Trust [2] and now managed by Clear Channel Spectacolor, a brand division of Clear Channel Outdoor (NYSE: CCO), a subsidiary of iHeartMedia Inc. (NYSE: IHRT), in Times Square is very impressive, I hate to have be the one to pour cold water on some of the claims we have seen.
- First of all, Clear Channel were very naughty in not accurately fact checking their early claims. We pulled them up on the statement in the initial press release where Harry Coghlan was quoted as saying that “Times Square now has North America’s biggest and most awe-inspiring digital screen”. The Fremont Street Experience in Las Vegas is much bigger so it is only accurate to say that this is ‘the World’s Largest Advertising Screen’. After the usual to-and-fro between their people and our people where they tried to stick to their claims, they pretty much relented and whilst not exactly printing a retraction, that ‘claim’ has not been repeated and 95% of the otherwise excellent press on the install (let’s not forget it is a magnificent install) has accurately described it as the World’s Largest Digital Billboard (if the use of the word ‘billboard’ implies use for advertising means, then that is correct.
- Secondly, we have a whole host of hangers on laying claim to some part of the magnificence. We’ve already seen a fair few (and ignored them) but couldn’t ignore the press release from Second Story, part of SapientNitro (NASDAQ: SAPE), which announced that it had been engaged by Vornado Realty Trust to help unveil this, the largest LED advertising display in the world. Fair enough you might think, but it didn’t take long reading through said press release to start hitting some major hyperbole and embellishment. Donald Chesnut, SapientNitro Chief Experience Officer said “This groundbreaking display pushes the boundaries of storytelling for brands and redefines what’s possible in creating digital experiences for consumers in physical spaces”. Umm, really Donald? It’s just a big screen. The release continued, we quote “The first-of-its-kind screen gives brands the ability to engage with audiences in entirely new ways. The interactive technology enables a variety of participatory experiences that blend the physical and digital, including the ability for pedestrians to use their mobile devices to influence and select the content that appears on the screen”. As regular readers will know that any old billboard of any size will do that. We stopped reading at that point.
As we have said many times (and many years ago). It will soon be the ‘norm’ that the sides of buildings are clad or even built from screen technology. Shape too, will be more important than sheer size going forward.
No doubt in the coming weeks we will get to hear more from those who want to be associated with greatness.