Archive for the ‘Bing Maps’ Category

Church Launches World’s Largest Chalk Painting ‘Skyvertisement’

Saturday, April 19th, 2014

I’ve mentioned before how my church, Fellowship Church, has leveraged their position directly in the landing path zone near DFW Airport to promote themselves through the use of a huge logo painted directly on their roof — a form of ‘Roofvertising‘, as it were. They’ve now done yet another type of “Skyvertising” by painting a huge chalk portrait of Jesus on the church parking lot:

Fellowship Church's Chalk Portrait of Jesus

Fellowship’s Chalk portrait of Jesus. The chalk portrait coincides with the week leading up to Easter holiday weekend, and the chalk painting is a form of skyvertising. Aerial Photo Credit: WFAA

While this is clearly more of a novelty and a PR ploy to remind people that this is Easter weekend (many people only attend church twice per year — Easter Weekend and Christmas services), roofvertising and skyvertising are actually serious forms of marketing that can often reach a great many people who are exposed to the promotions when they fly over them or see them when browsing through satellite imagery and aerial photos in Google Maps, Bing Maps, Mapquest, and other mapping applications. KFC’s “Space Ad” — an image of their iconic “Colonel” mascot/logo built at large scale out in the desert of Nevada — was probably the most famous example of this type of marketing.

Fellowship’s chalk portrait of Jesus certainly allowed them to abruptly stand out from the crowd of other churches all vying for attendees this weekend. Many churches do little more to promote themselves at Easter than to hang a large banner outside. (more…)

The Escher Effect Invades Bing Maps

Sunday, July 11th, 2010
I noticed that the beta version of Bing Maps, which adds cool functionality to their mapping interface, has a fair degree of the “Escher Effect” now appearing in the Bird’s Eye view (aerial photos):
Escher Effect at the Williams Tower, Houston Tx (formerly known as Transco Tower)

Escher Effect at the Williams Tower, Houston Tx (formerly known as Transco Tower)

 

As you may know, the “Escher Effect” is caused by the digital stitching-together of quantities of aerial photos, some of which are taking at different times, and from different angles from one another. (more…)