Not only is Montreal’s elegant City Hall masking its renovation with ad-bedecked scaffold wrap, as MiC reported last week, but so is another downtown edifice. Local agency Time2Ad has signed up L’Oreal, Perry Ellis and Solo Mobile to dominate The Bay, at the corner of St. Laurent and Sherbrooke Street, for a lengthy period of time.
The concept of wrapping unsightly scaffolding in high-traffic areas with eye-catching marketing messages ‘is popular in London, New York, Paris and Milan and is consistent with Montreal’s role as a trend-setter in Canada,’ says Time2Ad president Matthew Alzubi.
Calling it ‘landmark advertising,’ he says his company ‘creates a digital reproduction of the façade of a building and puts it on the scaffolding to conceal the renovation work going on behind it. We then place an ad on the scaffolding which is both esthetically pleasing and eye-catching. Advertising is, in fact, a bit of a misnomer because it is really a piece of art created by some of the most talented professionals in their fields.’
L’Oreal, Perry Ellis and Solo Mobile are featured on the Sherbrooke Street location, and Alzubi says his company plans to book ad wraps for two other buildings in downtown Montreal fairly soon. ‘This is a win-win for all concerned,’ he notes. ‘Media planners and their clients have a new and effective medium to break through the ever-increasing advertising clutter.
‘By partnering with us, property owners secure advertising revenue, which helps offset the cost of renovations to their façades. And Montrealers are the big winners, because an increasing number of historical buildings will be preserved and revitalized.’ Alzubi adds that opportunities to wrap upcoming renovation projects in Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary and Ottawa will soon be on offer.
