Thursday, August 03, 2006

Holdens huge new Blimp


The world's biggest TV screen could breeze past - literally - as you're lazing on the beach, sitting in your lounge room or watching teams tough it out on the footy field.

A what's claimed to be a world first multi-million dollar marketing campaign, Holden will launch a 55-metre long, 20-metre tall blimp into the skies of capital cities all around Australia, starting in Sydney.

Currently being pieced together at Melbourne's Tullamarine airport, the multi-million Big Red blimp has already been nicknamed the 'Holden-burg' by one member of the media, a reference to the Hindenburg disaster that saw a blimp explode spectacularly.

Of course, like all new blimps the so-nicknamed Holden-burg will be filled with helium some five million litres of it.

More impressive than the blimp itself (which marks the return of the slow-moving marketing message to Australian skies) is the colour TV screen on each side of it.

The screen measures a massive 914 inches, or more than 23 metres. That's some 20 times bigger than the large screen TVs being sold today.

According to Holden, the pixels are so big (a few inches apart) that the screen on the blimp can't be properly viewed close up.

But it can be seen from about one kilometre away, says Holden executive director of sales and marketing Alan Batey.

Holden's not saying exactly where the blimp will be seen over the next 12 months it has been hired, except to say it will be seen at many of the nation's premiere events.

Once it was inflated which happened earlier this week it was removed from the biggest hangar at Tullamarine.

The blimp is part of what Holden says is the biggest marketing spend ever from Holden, indicating the significance of the VE Commodore it will promote, which cost more than $1 billion to develop.

The VE Commodore goes on sale in mid-August from $34,490 with the effort of restoring interest in the waning large car market and keeping the Commodore at the top of the local sales charts.

Holden chairman and managing director Denny Mooney refused to speculate how many Commodores would be sold, except to claim the Commodore will still be Australia's best-selling car.

This (VE Commodore) launch is so important to the viability and future of Holden, says Batey. It will be at the heart of our resurgence.

1 comment:

Gary said...

Just wait, some idiot will shoot at the Blimp. They have done it to our Goodyear Blimp.