Livingstone's
Africa, on 43rd Street
3D displays take New Yorkers deep into the jungle
By Toni Fitzgerald
Jun 17, 2009
It's just one of those New York days.
To your left crocodiles are snapping at you. Ahead, the other explorers are pushing through the jungle, waist deep in mud. The mud washes back, splashing you. Snakes slither through the undergrowth. You hear the roar of the jungle.
Well, not actually.
Actually, you're looking at, or rather into, a store window, and what you are seeing is a dramatic 3D jungle scene in which you are part of the action, experiencing the jungle right alongside the explorers.
The 3D billboards, one on 43rd Street at 5th Avenue and the other at 382 W. Broadway between Broome Street and Spring Street, were promoting History’s new series “Expedition Africa: Stanley and Livingstone,” which premiered last month.
The 3D effect was created from four 57-inch auto-stereoscopic Enabl3D screens that were placed together. The 3D trailer ran for 60 seconds. Unlike 3D of old, passersby didn’t need those tedious blue-and-red glasses to see the display.
The campaign was a collaboration between Pearl Media, Big Picture Group, Magnetic Media and Horizon Media.
“It involved creating a different combination of layers,” says Chris Moseley, History’s senior vice president of marketing.
“For the part where the explorers jump in deep mud, we needed the mud layer in the forefront, and then you get splashed by the mud. It sounds easy, but it wasn’t.”
History wanted an outdoor campaign to emphasize the adventure element of “Expedition,” but it also wanted an immersive element that actually brought people into the story.
Moseley says the 3D billboard came about after pondering how to connect those two ideas.
The end result: “History doesn’t have to feel detached from our everyday experience,” Moseley says.
“Expedition,” which is produced by “Survivor’s” Mark Burnett, recreates journalist Henry Morton Stanley’s nine-month search for Scottish explorer David Livingstone, who vanished in Africa in the 19th century.
The show brings together four experienced trekkers to recreate that 970-mile journey in just 30 days. The result is an intense reality series that fits with History’s increasingly high-adrenalin identity as the home of “Ice Road Truckers” and “Ax Men.”
The 3D campaign ran from May 15 to June 15, and it may have helped boost the May 31 premiere of “Expedition.” The show averaged 723,000 adults 25-54, up 19 percent from History’s usual primetime average.
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