Beyond Billboards
by , (15 comments)
I’ve been flying a lot lately, and because of free services like Google Earth and Google Maps (satellite view), I’ve come to wonder about building-top marketing in the future. Consider that, as time passes, we continue to increase network bandwidth and shorten the amount of time between making a change, and seeing that change published (examples: web sites and direct to plate printing). Currently, you may see some buildings with messages on top. Usually they’re near airports and say something obvious, like the name of the company or use the helipad symbol. Or you might see the name of your city written with white rocks in the hills, or something like the Hollywood sign. But what if satellite images and/or aerial photos will be updated more frequently, and people will use roof-tops for advertising? Consider big convention centers, or hotels that are very spread out. That’s a lot of roof real estate. Viewers would see the large ads while looking up an address near-by. I know that doesn’t sound like a definite ROI, but it might be an option for a company, like a convention center, that wants to put their logo or contact info in noticeable colors on the roof so that people looking up directions for places near-by would see the ad. Will this ever happen? We’ll see.
Comments (15)
George said:
Yea, that’s all we need. More friggin’ advertising blight in our urban environment. Why don’t you start with tatooing and using your body for corporate slogans before taking up valuable real estate. Let’s save those rooftops for something more useful; generating electricity, cooling the interior heating loads, providing open-space and gardens.
Posted on August 17, 2005
chris said:
I think we’re more likely to see the Hotels, etc. paying to have their logo and info float over their location on Google Maps when someone types in Hotels, New York. Less money, same general effect minus the novelty which would wear off pretty fast.
Posted on August 17, 2005
nate said:
In the cartoons, the evil scientist usually likes to use a giant laser to carve his name into the moon Äî I think that was on The Tick. I will be sad, but unsurpised, if Nike or Wal-Mart does that for real before I kick the bucket.
Posted on August 17, 2005
NIck said:
Well, I think they already do that. It’s called the less-than interesting ‘air-mall’ magazines in the pocket in front of you! Kidding. But seriously, other than crop circles, I can’t think of anything that you can see from that far up! And I tend to agree with the notion that if we as advertisers thought it would be worth it, it would have been done long ago. How much for a 30-day billboard? That’s what I thought, now times that by 30,000 feet -whatever that means!
Posted on August 17, 2005
Kyle said:
Okay, okay, open-space and gardens would be nice on building-tops. And I do hate the aiplane smoke advertising you see at the beach or outdoor events. Yet, I wonder if Chris’ thought will come true.
Nick, perhaps it would be too expensive. Either way, recent technology let’s you zoom in quite far, so that big buildings actually take up 3 inches on your screen. In the past, this has only been possible with aerial photography, which has always been expensive. I can’t post a screen capture since it is copyrighted, but you might want to search for “san diego convention center, san deigo, ca” in Google Maps. Zoom in all the way. You may need to move down in order to see the large convention center. It already uses the roof for tennis cours, and A/C. You can see Petco Park nearby, as well as the Gas Lamp District (down-town) and a bunch of hotels. Just one example of my original thought.
Maybe this idea will nevery fly. It was just a thought.
Posted on August 18, 2005
Daniel Burns said:
Instead of putting the ad on the physical space, Google could just sell the space on the image itself.
Cheaper and same result, no?
Posted on August 19, 2005
Eric Baillargeon said:
I got the same idea here last month! And if you look at the URL in the comments, someone already start it.
Posted on August 22, 2005
Gary Cook said:
Interesting idea. Although, as Chris remarks, I also think it’s more likely that companies will pay for virtual ads that float above the primary layer. A sort of ‘augmented advertising’. It’s already common to see networks applying logos onto football pitches in the correct perpective and games frequently rent-out space to advertisers. Sometime soon, with all the extra mapping going on, we will be able to delve into the streets we are viewing in more detail. The more we wish to see, the more the advertising will be targeted at us.
Posted on August 25, 2005
Chris Hunt said:
Hey, why stop at rooves? What’s to stop Nike, for example, buying up a few acres of woodland and cutting a swoosh-shaped hole in it. Plant some contrasting-coloured crop in there and you have a massive billboard, albeit probably somewhere off the beaten track (though maybe still on a flight path). Just what we need, more deforestation…
Posted on August 25, 2005
DC1974 said:
Well they do have those new roving projection billboards. Which someone wrote about over at Design Observer.
And if I’m not mistaken at the very least the United Center has its logo on the roof. Not sure if you can see it on Google maps.
Actually, billboards aimed at space would be better I suppose than billboards aimed at the street, but I wonder how it would fit into zoning laws.
Posted on August 25, 2005
Kyle said:
Yes, you can see the United Center’s logo with name on the top of the building. You don’t even have to zoom in all the way to see it. I simply did a google search for “united center, chicago, il” to get there, and then zoomed in.
Posted on August 26, 2005
Kyle said:
Love ‘em or hate em’—it looks as though ads in Google Earth may be coming soon.
Posted on November 7, 2005
ctipton said:
Should have known Target would hit this first. The most literal use of their logo. What company makes more sense? Anyone heard of another company doing this yet?
Google Maps just North of Chicago - blog 1 - blog 2
Posted on January 20, 2006
Kyle said:
Wow, how appropriate!
Posted on January 24, 2006
Kyle said:
Oprah example.
Posted on May 16, 2006