Fifteen seconds of NYC fame light up Chinese social media

TSX Broadway on New York’s Times Square is just one of the many billboards located in one of the world’s most famous advertising locations, but this billboard has a 15 seconds for $40 deal that has become a trend on social media.

China-focused publication Sixth Tone explains how the opportunity to personally advertise on Times Square is gaining popularity among young Chinese who have used it to bolster their social media presence.

Why it matters

At a glance, this is one for extremely digitally connected kids, but it's an advertising story that echoes a bigger trend we've seen at the major awards in recent years. These creative activations, with minimal media in high-profile locations, have a purpose of gaining traction online through influencers and PR rather than through a broad-beam OOH campaign. Only this time the display media for sale is a consumer product rather than a business product. 

What’s going on

• Douyin, TikTok in China, now yields thousands of posts featuring the display, which first went live in January.
• Sixth Tone spoke to one Chinese student in New York who posted a video featuring his content on the screen on Douyin celebrating his and his partner’s anniversary, which soon went viral.
• Now a small industry is emerging, with people helping out non-New York based buyers by recording footage of the ads as a service.

Sourced from Sixth Tone, WARC, Fast Company, Banliang Finance 

[Image: Weibo via Banliang Finance]