Colossal Media Group is the nation’s largest hand paint Outdoor advertising company specializing in photorealistic, high-impact murals with inventory in over 21 markets nationwide. We’re made up of two divisions:
COLOSSAL MEDIA has permanent inventory in major markets throughout the US. In addition to our existing inventory Colossal also has the ability to custom scout and permit untapped locations for clients at a moment’s notice. Because the hand paint medium is locally respected for its artistic and organic approach, we have unique access to iconic and otherwise unattainable wall space in cities where traditional advertising is not permitted. SKY HIGH MURALS is our team of highly-skilled painters who travel the country dedicated to the hand-paint craft. Our painters are able to replicate any piece of imagery, any detail, any abstraction, in any size. We’re licensed rigging installers and can complete any size job in house and on time.
CAPABILITIES : PHOTOREALISTIC REPLICATION :
LICENSED RIGGING AND SCAFFOLDING INSTALLATION:
We have the largest team of highly skilled hand painters in the country. No matter how detailed or abstract, our painters have specialized training and a unique eye that allows them to reproduce any image, perfectly. We’ve painted on ceilings, on stadium tarps, during the day, at night, on roof tops, in-studio, 200 feet above the ground, on all kinds of surfaces, in any weather, for elite fine arts clients and major commercial advertisers. All of our projects are done in-house, from start to finish.
We’re fully licensed and insured to hang suspended scaffolding from any sized building. All of our painters take rigorous safety classes and are certified to work high up in the air.
SEATTLE 2,610,000
MINNEAPOLIS
PORTLAND
2,640,000
4,200,000
MADISON 1,410,000
BOISE
BOSTON 6,420,000
MILWAUKEE 2,730,000
1,500,000
CHICAGO
SAN FRANCISCO
GRAND RAPIDS
9,000,000
5,910,000
NEW YORK
1,470,000
106,980,000
KANSAS CITY (MO)
DENVER
2,160,000
1,950,000
INDIANAPOLIS 1,680,000
ST. LOUIS
LOS ANGELES
1,590,000
18,150,000
PHOENIX 1,650,000
ATLANTA
KEY
4,980,000
CITY NAME
MONTHLY IMPRESSIONS
TOTAL MONTHLY IMPRESSIONS:
AUSTIN
184,830,000
3,930,000
TAMPA
2,070,000
AND COUNTING...
PERMANENT INVENTORY : Colossal Media offers high-impact wallscapes and unique street-level units in 21 U.S. markets & our national footprint continues to grow.
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MIAMI
1,800,000
CUSTOM SCOUTING: With an in-house acquisitions team, Colossal has the ability to custom scout and permit locations anywhere in the country to fit a client's needs.
HOW IT WORKS:
1
2
Tell us everything we need to know about your target demographic, priority markets and/or neighborhoods.
5
APP ROV ED!
You select your favorite walls for the campaign. Colossal revisits each location pick to secure official permitting.
Colossal does preliminary research on local zoning and advertising codes to ensure a legal and smart approach in every market.
6 Our team of painters grab their tools and fly market to market, transforming each selected wall facade into a vibrant art mural.
3 Our acquisitions team sets off, hitting each market, taking the time to understand the local landscape and culture so that we can deliver high-impact inventory that speaks directly to your target consumer.
4 With preliminary approval from local landlords, Colossal brings you an array of inventory options to review (complete with visuals, traffic data, and intimate details on each location).
7 Local buzz begins to spread about the new colors on the streets... With passersby, in local blogs and newspapers, the murals quickly take on a voice of their own!
SCENARIO : Stella Artois wanted to bring to life the ritual of pouring the perfect Stella.
STELLA SOLUTION : Colossal painted 19 creative frames in 21 consecutive days to capture the 9 steps of the “perfect pour.” Colossal also filmed a time-lapse of the production process, showing how the story was articulated, frame by frame, to create a stop motion journey of the whole project.
RESULT: With Colossal’s hand painted wall at the forefront, the campaign grew into a multi-platform initiative, well beyond the Outdoor medium. In conjunction with Mother New York, Stella Artois commissioned a behind-the-scenes documentary and online journal of the campaign featuring the history and art of hand painted wallscapes. Promotional activity surrounded the wall on Broome Street with temporary old-fashioned viewfinders, street teams armed with collateral. Events were held at the bar across the street, all strategically in place to engage passersby in The Ritual and drive traffic to the campaign site: www.theritualproject.com and documentary site: www.uptherefilm.com And it worked. The response was immense. In addition to the crowds that gathered at the site of the wall, both videos received incredible traction Online with links appearing on Vimeo, NYTimes.com, Trendcentral, The Atlantic, Hypebeast, The Wooster Collective, and many others. Thanks to this viral success and overwhelmingly positive response, Stella’s hand paint story lives on... The Stella Artois hand paint campaign won a Gold OBIE for the best Individual Execution, Traditional Billboard, at the 2010 OAAA Conference.
SCENARIO : For the opening of Dennis Hopper’s exhibit Sign of the Times at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery in New York, Dennis wanted to bring his iconic photographs to life as hand painted murals/billboards. The billboards had to be photorealistic and maintain complete artistic integrity of his images.
DENNIS HOPPER SOLUTION : Shafrazi reached out to Colossal and commissioned our team of painters to handle the unique task. The Sky High crew came together, working around the clock to perfectly replicate Dennis’s iconic images into museum quality oil paintings. RESULT: Hopper, critics, and visitors all agreed, the photorealism was astounding and the exhibit was a huge success. After the initial New York gallery exhibit, the Colossal team was asked to paint more images from his archives for exhibitions in Abu Dhabi, Miami’s Art Basel, and a large show in Rome.
SCENARIO : Sailor Jerry was looking for an authentic way to engage with their unique target demographic.
SAILOR JERRY SOLUTION : Colossal offered the perfect mix of mainstream, high-impact media and organic, original style to hit home with the alternative mindset of the brand’s rebellious rum drinker. The Colossal team grabbed their gear to hit New York, Denver, San Francisco, LA, and Austin, seamlessly integrating Sailor Jerry’s original tattoo artwork into each city’s natural landscape. RESULT: The strategy worked. The murals sparked viral conversation in all of the markets covered. Sailor Jerry fans came out to speak about the artwork, the brand, and most importantly, provoked a consumer-generated dialogue surrounding the campaign. The client couldn’t have been happier with the success in reaching their target - a group that would have typically resisted a mainstream media push. Sailor Jerry decided to extend the campaign for a second consecutive year, and is even considering a northern mission, confident that Colossal can stir the same level of buzz in Canada that we did here in the U.S.
SCENARIO : Hugo Boss needed the perfect partner to help develop an exciting and buzzworthy campaign around their global design competition, “Hugo Create.” The competition challenged participants to create artwork based on the brand’s weekly design themes.
HUGO BOSS SOLUTION : Hugo Boss teamed up with Colossal to find twelve powerful venues that could collectively act as an outdoor gallery for the twelve winning designs and allow the public to discover the paintings creatively scattered throughout New York City’s natural landscape. Tapping into our permanent inventory and scouting team, Colossal delivered twelve unique locations that each served as a canvas to recreate the winning designs. RESULT: Our combined capabilities of permanent inventory and hand paint production helped Hugo Boss to deliver a holistic, turn-key campaign that could be leveraged both virally and editorially. Very pleased with the campaign, the brand created hugocreate.com, a contest homepage with information about the winners, their artwork, and a Manhattan Gallery exclusively dedicated to our hand painted murals.
“Contrary to popular belief, New York’s most spectacular art isn’t hanging at the Museum of Modern Art or at the Met. It adorns the sides of buildings in some of the city’s more interesting neighborhoods, much of it painted by one company—the aptly named Colossal Media.” - THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
“In my mind, the benefit of using art in advertising is art’s attention-grabbing quality, art’s connection with the soul. And I think that’s why it’s done and how it succeeds. Art catches your eye or ear, makes you think and can increase your memory of the product name.” - KATHERINE COLEMAN, THE AMERICAN ADVERTISING MUSEUM
“I think there is a natural fascination with the skill required to produce something of the scale of these signs. The photo-real nature of some of Sky High/Colossal Media’s work is staggering and invites the question, “how do they do that?” I think with the older signs there is a similar thing happening but they also offer a very public insight into our not so distant past. They are often local landmarks and have a place in the collective and individual consciousness of people who have often walked past them daily for years.”
“The best compliment I can pay the Colossal team is in the way we came to work with them. We saw some amazing wall paintings in New York and I said, ‘We have to work with those guys.’ Now that Colossal’s Vans work is up in NYC and LA, I’m sure there are other marketing types saying the exact same thing…” - DOUG PALLADINI VP OF MARKETING, VANS
“Colossal Media’s work is nothing short of gorgeous. “ - CREATIVE DIRECTOR, PHILADELPHIA PA
“True, we supplied them with an image to work from, but that image was not made of brushstrokes. It was by no means a paint by numbers scheme. So they’re bringing something to it, something artistic. They, their hands and their eyes, are bringing this work to life.” - MALCOLM MURRAY, DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKER
“You can’t print what we paint. You print in pixels, mixing colors optically with little dots, blue and yellow, and together they make green... But we paint in green.”
- A.J. LOWERY - AUSTIN, HEAD PAINTER
“The art of large scale sign writing lives on in New York, USA through the work of Colossal Media. […] These ads stand out dramatically from all the usual outdoor work that resident New Yorkers are exposed to. Great work!” - GHOSTSIGNS
“We as a media team were challenged to come up with unique and innovative ways to reach our core target. Colossal helped us break into the street art scene in an organic/ non-intrusive manner. We were able to get our message out there in a way that resonated with our target audience and overall helped the brand positioning. They were and continue to be a great partner.” - PLANNING SUPERVISOR, UNIVERSAL MCCANN
RECENT CLIENTS:
Colossal Media Group 176 North 9th Street Brooklyn, NY 11211 P.718-858-0979 F.718-486-6311 www.colossalmedia.com Book designed by Eric Elms / Partners & Others Photography by Morgan Howland, Stephen Schuster, Ray Mock, and Colossal Media Infographics by Andrew Janik.
Š2010 Colossal Media. No part of this book may be reproduced without written permission of Colossal Media. Printed in Canada