Clear Channel Outdoor to Challenge and Inspire Advertising Community at Cannes Lions 2013 with World’s First Hand-Painted Micrography Billboard Made from Tweets

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Clear Channel Outdoor (NYSE: CCO), one of the largest outdoor advertising companies in the world, is launching a social media campaign on June 16^th at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. Designed to ignite conversation and debate about realizing creative potential, the campaign will lead to the live creation of the world’s first hand-painted micrography billboard on the Promenade de la Croisette in Cannes, with the mural generated entirely from tweets.

#canvas for creativity is a Twitter-based marketing program designed by Clear Channel Outdoor (@ccoutdoor) that seeks to spark debate and share the best in creative thought leadership against the backdrop of a global, real-time and increasingly digitally-connected world. Clear Channel Outdoor will be hosting and contributing to the conversation, offering its perspective on each topical discussion as one of the globe’s leading outdoor media owners.

In addition, every day throughout the Cannes Lions festival, CCO is inviting two key industry influencers to lead a debate about a creative topic using their own Twitter feeds, marking the tweet with #canvas. Influencers signed up to the program include Mark Cridge, founder of digital and creative agency Glue. The best tweets from each day’s #canvas debate will be collated and used to create a live, hand painted mural, located in the grounds of Le Grand Hotel in Cannes, 45 Boulevard de la Croisette, 06400 Cannes, France.

Using the artistic form of micrography (the technique of using text to form an image when viewed at a distance, creating an interplay between the text and image), three world class artists will spend up to eight hours a day hand-painting the best comments, perspectives, observations and quotes on to the giant 16m x 4m canvas, with the final mural image emerging throughout the festival week.

The 5 creative topics for debate will be:

Social media visualizations of the #canvas Twitter content will be streamed on CCO’s website (clearchannelinternational.com/cannes), digital screens at the festival, and a high-resolution projection on to a separate 18m x 5m canvas located on the roof of the Le Grand Hotel, Cannes. The projection canvas has been built specifically for the festival and sits at the highest spot on the Croisette, a spot never before used for advertising or media at Cannes Lions.

After the giant artwork is completed, a searchable gigapixel photo of the final image will be featured on CCO’s website, allowing ultra-close up visual inspection, and the ability to find tweets using individual Twitter handles.

Paul Evans, Marketing and Planning Director for Clear Channel International, commented:

“By engaging key influencers and some of the most innovative minds in the global creative and advertising community and beyond, our program will not only inspire and rally extraordinary thought leadership, but we will go on to create a one-of-a-kind social media-fuelled piece of art. There cannot be a better real-world demonstration of how outdoor and social media are perfect partners.”

#canvas for creativity, Join in at #canneslions

Credits:

Clear Channel Outdoor’s international in-house marketing team created the program concept, working with a roster of agency partners, including Buzz Radar (data visualization), CURB Media (outdoor mural, gigapixel image, high-resolution projection), Fishburn Hedges (PR), Proud Creative (design) and We Are Social (social media management).

The artists are Patrick McGregor and Tait Roelofs, as part of CURB’s team:

Patrick McGregor is an artist trained in hand-painted billboard ads and fine arts since 1993. His work spans the past two decades, delivering extraordinary outdoor ads for a wide range of companies ranging from Nike to Marc Jacobs as well as galleries.

Tait Roelofs (aka T8) is a Los Angeles based artist working in various media, mainly painting, sculpture, and video. T8 has exhibited in numerous art fairs including Art LA, Scope NY, Pulse Miami, and at the ISLIP Art Museum in Long Island. He has had numerous solo and group shows in Los Angeles and New York. He is currently represented by De Soto Gallery in Los Angeles.)

Notes to editors:

Follow the debate at: @CCOutdoor

Clear Channel Outdoor is the proud sponsor of the Outdoor Lions awards for the fourth consecutive year.

Please note that www.clearchannelinternational.com/cannes does not go live until Wednesday 12^th June.

About Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings Inc.(CCO)

Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings, Inc., (NYSE: CCO) is one of the world’s largest outdoor advertising companies, with more than 750,000 displays in over 40 countries across five continents, including 48 of the 50 largest markets in the United States. Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings offers many types of displays across its global platform to meet the advertising needs of its customers. This includes a growing digital platform that now offers over 1000 digital billboards across 37 U.S. markets. Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings’ International segment operates in nearly 30 countries across Asia, Australia, Europe and Latin America in a wide variety of formats.

Clear Channel International: clearchannelinternational.com
Follow us @ccoutdoor

Clear Channel Outdoor North America: clearchanneloutdoor.com
Follow us @ccoutdoorna

Fishburn Hedges, New York
Mike Harris
212-459-5738
mike.harris@fishburn-hedges.com
or
Clear Channel Outdoor North America
David Grabert
917-488-8249
davidgrabert@clearchannel.com

Source: Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings

Released June 13, 2013