A little while ago something rather spectacular took place over New York City. Millions of people if they looked up would – for a time – have been able to see a giant advertisement in the sky for the popular mobile game Candy Crush – one of those tile-matching video games that swamp the app stores. I do remember the time when this game first became popular and dozens of people I knew were playing it and often announcing that they were on level 300 odd or level 500 odd and so on. I played it myself for a bit but soon got tired of it as it is not my sort of game.
Anyway – back to the advertisement in the sky. How did they achieve this seemingly futuristic feat? Using drones with colourful lights of course to create a light show. Light shows are something I am a big fan of because 1. more and more events are choosing to have light shows instead of loud fireworks and 2. that’s great news for pets, wild animals and people who can experience sensory overload such as many with Autism.
But with the advent of light shows and drones it was only going to be a matter of time before we found other ways to commercialize and capitalize off them. Advertisements are widely seen as a bothersome thing but at the same time many of us recognise that it’s a necessary nuisance as long as its efficiently and correctly regulated through the many mediums you can do advertisements through – television – websites – billboards – posters – online videos – livestreams – public transport – bus stops – and more recently we’ve seen advertisement being introduced more and more to streaming services as well, such as with Netflix’s cheaper ad tier.
I mean this very website itself has advertisements and has done for a while now via Google Adsense although I am yet to reach the threshold of being able to withdraw from it. It serves as a medium for many creators to be able to turn a hobby into a full-time job if they’re lucky enough, or at least it is often the first step in that direction among other ways of making money.
But with the advent of sky advertisement such as with the Candy Crush ad over New York City – could we be on the cusp of more widely seeing such advertisements in our skies more and more as we move forward? Perhaps even to the point where no matter where we are there is a good chance of seeing a sky advertisement? Could it get to the point where it becomes a nuisance, and we begin losing our nice clear skies? Maybe.
To me it sounds a bit like something from a dystopian world but also something to not be completely discounted. There are laws and regulations in place for using drones – but this is more aimed towards safety and security. Sky advertisement is something that does not have regulation because it’s not something we’ve really seen until now – apart perhaps from the occasional blimp or a small plane flying with a streamer advertisement off its tail. But I would not say those versions of ‘sky advertisement’ are as interesting as colourful lights that can move and change in ways that can create almost limitless and fantastic patterns in the sky.
It’s mesmerizing and much more attractive to the eye. So, I can see it being far more effective and I don’t see any reasons why advertisers and companies would not eventually become quite interested in pulling such stunts to advertise their services and products in this new, amazing and eye-catching manner, that would be exposed to millions of people and which could be done day or night – although night would look better.
Sure, it may be expensive but advertisement in general is expensive anyway and companies already drop millions and millions on it each year. So, I can easily see money not being an issue if there is profit.
So, we should probably start talking regulations and laws in advance just to be on the safe side and ready for this potential new avenue of advertisement. Perhaps limiting it to certain days of the month – more safety regulations to prevent accidents from what could be a greater increase in drone usage for advertisement – research into how light shows still may affect wildlife and the environment, such as migratory birds – maybe even limiting it to places that already suffer light pollution to the point where stars are not visible anyway.
Is it something we’d want at all? Perhaps the avenues of advertisement that already exist are plenty enough and we should not let it extend to our skies – perhaps a ban is in order or at least regulation that makes sky advertisement an extremely rare thing. Or it could just be limited to organised light shows or other events where advertisers make agreements with organisers and officials to insert light show ads amongst and between the actual light shows or perhaps over an open-air stadium during a football game?
All I know is that if I went out into the country somewhere, got out a telescope for what should be a nice relaxing night of stargazing, and get interrupted by a big, massive Mcdonald’s 99p cheeseburger lighting up the sky, I’ll probably be pretty peeved.
This is all just food for thought. Who knows what the future holds. Perhaps nothing will ever come of this. Have a good weekend.
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