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Four expensive publicity stunts involving vertical 3-D billboards are taking place in Manhattan, and each is getting the public and the media noticing and talking. They’d usually be the tool of PR firms, but each is the brainchild of an ad agency hoping to shock the public out of complacency. Edward Bernays is surely smiling wherever he is, or isn’t.
On July 27 Target Stores will turn Rockefeller Center into a vertical catwalk as 15 acrobats (in harnesses) walking down nine floors of Rockefeller Center in clothing from Target’s fall collection from designers Mossimo, Liz Lange and Isaac Mizrahi. A traditional runway on the ground will host another 50 models.
Target “borrowed” the idea from Marshall Fields, which did a similar stunt in Chicago in 2003.
HBO is readying a billboard near Madison Square Garden that will feature a huge TV screen, with mannequins in front of the screen watching HBO shows. It’ll be there through August 19th.
“This billboard will humorously represent the lengths people will go to watch HBO original programming,” Eric Kessler, president of sales and marketing for HBO, told The Post.
There are two similar billboards in Times Square: a giant Calvin Klein perfume bottle that’s being occupied by live models for two days this week, and a very cool Mountain Dew sign into which pedestrians can incorporate digital pictures of themselves.