Large LED displays appear in Liverpool and Times Square
[Reproduced with permission from the DailyDOOH blog. DOOH = Digital Out Of Home.]
Despite the protests of large LED screens in both Berlin and Moscow, we believe that this 31 metre in length by 7 metre high digital billboard from Ocean Outdoor in Liverpool, UK is Europe’s largest commercial (i.e. takes advertising) LED.
You don’t get to buy / build billboards this big without deep pockets and Ocean Outdoor, a privately held company, took on board "significant investment" from Smedvig Capital to help make this (and other things yet to be announced) happen.
Ocean Outdoor, who like to specialize in premium advertising opportunities across the UK, worked in association with Land Securities, one of the UK’s better Real Estate Investment Trusts (REIT), to build the giant media wall shown above.
The media wall / billboard (perhaps it is too big to be simply described as a ‘billboard’) was first let by Ocean Outdoor for commercial use on July 28 in a deal we believe with Coca-Cola. The wall is situated opposite Liverpool’s Lime Street railway station and is just in front of St Johns Shopping Centre (soon itself to undergo a much needed UK PDS 100m transformation).
Grant Branfoot, Managing Director of Ocean Outdoor told us, “This is a fantastic advertising platform. The media wall is a unique structure with unavoidable presence. The digital screen is the first of its kind in the UK and provides a new innovative product to the advertising market.”
Note in the picture how the digital screen is flanked at each end by tensile fabric for additional media images and messages.
The Media Wall has already got the interest of the media buyers, James Davies from Posterscope and Board Director - Hyperspace told us exclusively “The site is in a great high profile location within Liverpool and the quality of production and technology is similarly impressive. It’s encouraging to see Local Authorities taking a progressive stance and granting permission for such a site which will no doubt enhance the public’s perception of Liverpool being a modern, forward thinking city. Several of Posterscope’s research projects have also demonstrated that certain digital displays can help make people think that the advertised brands are innovative and cutting edge and we expect Ocean’s site to perform similarly well in this respect” Liverpool of course is the European Capital of Culture for 2008.
Toshiba lights up new LED screen in New York's Times Square
Toshiba has unveiled a new 1.6 million LED display in Times Square supporting high definition resolution. The Toshiba Vision Times Square will take pride of place at the top of One Times Square Building, and carry its message to the crowded streets 285 feet (about 87 meters) below.
The 22.3m (73.3 ft./880-inch ) diagonal screen integrates an array of 1280 x 1248 LEDs, and HD image quality is realized by Toshiba's proprietary "Technovirtual" technology. This innovative two-dimensional, pixel-sharing technology uses adjacent LEDs to create virtual pixels with a 12.5mm pitch.
Toshiba says the display is designed for enhanced eco efficiency, and uses the latest LED technology to cut power consumption, an advance that also contributes to improved performance reliability and an extended life cycle.
Walgreen to claim super-size bragging rights
The multicomponent, 250,000-pound sign will be programmed from street level to 341 feet high at the top of the building, on the traffic island between Broadway and Seventh Avenue at 42nd Street. Already hosting a number of other billboards the building is also the place where the ball drops on New Year’s Eve. The store is expected to be unveiled, and the billboard officially illuminated, next fall.
The sign will have 12 million LEDs - 17,000 square feet of them - “which is more than a third of an acre,” said Arthur Gilmore, president of the Gilmore Group, a Manhattan design and branding consulting firm, which created the sign. “Including its digital and vinyl decorative components, it will be 43,720 square feet in area.”
The new spectacular “will be larger than any sign in Times Square,” said Barry Winston, adding that it would surpass the current champion, the 11,000-square-foot Nasdaq sign on Broadway at 43rd Street.