I just had to take a “tourist” photo in Times Square. Looks like the guy behind me (left) and some person whose elbow got in the photo (right) are taking their “tourist” photos too.
When I went to NYC last year, I had a short bucket list: watch Wicked live, jog in Central Park, and walk around Times Square. The first two goals were not as popular as the third — every traditional tourist needs to go to Times Square. It’s almost like an unwritten rule.
With 300,000 eye balls passing through this monumental space every single day, it only makes sense for ad space rental to be as inflated as NY’s real estate prices. But Google’s new ad takes Times Square advertising to a whole new level: an 8-storey digital ad spanning one entire block.
Google’s ad is set to go live in November 24 until early 2015. With the holidays just around the corner, and NYC’s annual Ball Drop in Times Square attracting media attention from all over the world, it seems like Google couldn’t have picked better timing to take-over this massive digital display. The price tag? A whopping $2.5 million.
Billboard owners testing the massive digital ad display with an image of a skier.
If we do a little math, $2.5 million divided by the 300,000 people daily X 30 days (assuming Google’s ad is up for this long) = $3.6 per set of eyes. Yikes. That’s still a steep price to pay to get 1 person’s jaw to drop.
But at the end of the day, I think this ad spot is an ego-boosting move that sends one big message: Don’t Mess with Google. If it can take over Times Square, it can take over anything.
Source: http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/insanely-large-billboard-will-light-entire-block-times-square-starting-tonight-161480