Clear Channel LED boards hacked by graffiti artist
March 26, 2008 by Dave Haynes
UPDATE: See the comments. ClearChannel says this was a paid ad. “The skull phone digital display was a paid advertisement that represented themselves as advertising for an art display. The claim that anyone allegedly “hacked into” the display through the internet or by entering the physical location is totally false.”
The plot thickens … I know the economy in Southern California isn’t humming along, but would it not cost a decent chunk of change to buy billboard time, particularly time on 10 boards in an A market???
A post on Wired’s blog suggested $7,000 or so – which I know my teenaged kids don’t have to blow on outdoor advertising.
All very strange.
From the SuperTouch blog, via MIT Advertising Lab.
Some guy, reportedly an 18-year-old, managed to hack his way into the PCs driving 10 LED boards operated by Clear Channel around L.A.
One of the images suggests he may have done so by climbing up to the billboard towers and plugging in directly, as opposed to getting at the players via an Internet connection.
The skull phone digital display was a paid advertisement that represented themselves as advertising for an art display. The claim that anyone allegedly “hacked into” the display through the internet or by entering the physical location is totally false.
BIG big props to you Dave that everyone in the world posts about this and ClearChannel chooses you as the place where to make a statement. Respect.
Dave – very strange indeed…and if you are truly advertising and spending the mucho dollars for the 9 LED boards in a major DMA…it was a very poor marketing strategy indeed, with a huge dollar waste, without a minimal call-to-action in the creative billboard graphical message – that admittedly, does stand out from the other creative in the programming loop (well maybe it did work ….considering I am writing this post as it caught my eyes)…But, I was guessing (not to challenge Tony’s post explanation or create a Watergate investigation) that someone was just parsing the hack definition versus the culprit really being “an inside job” by a possible disgruntled CC employee, doing the dirty deed (i.e. sabotage) with the skull&phone playlist insert, and then quitting or summarily being fired? …the mystery and/or conspiracy continues….