A Mexican Beer At World's Crossroad

[Erik Sine]

By STUART ELLIOTT

Published: January 26, 2006

BEERS have long been found among the products advertised on the bright, colorful, oversize signs that populate Times Square, from bygone brands like Ruppert to stalwarts like Budweiser. Soon, a beer brewed in Mexico will join their ranks.

Corona Extra, the best-selling imported beer in America, is buying big twin signs on 1600 Broadway, the new 27-story building at 48th Street owned by Sherwood Equities. The signs, which are scheduled to go up on Monday, each measure about 92 feet high by 35 feet wide and show open bottles of Corona with limes wedged into the necks.

The signs will face south, toward the big Budweiser sign attached to 1 Times Square, the southern anchor of the district. That is only fitting because Anheuser-Busch, the brewer of Budweiser, owns 50 percent of Grupo Modelo, the Mexican company that brews Corona Extra.

Grupo Modelo and Procermex, a unit of the company's international division responsible for United States sales, signed a multiyear agreement to lease the signs with a part of Sherwood Equities known as Sherwood Outdoor. Executives at Sherwood Outdoor oversee the leasing of signs for 1600 Broadway and the building to the south, 2 Times Square, which is the northern anchor of the district.

For pedestrians facing north in Times Square, or computer users browsing on Google Earth, the Corona Extra signs will frame the giant signs on 2 Times Square, for (from top to bottom) Prudential Financial, HSBC, Samsung, Coca-Cola and Pontiac.

"We feel the ads in Times Square will bring a lot of benefits," said Roberto Viejo, chief sales and marketing officer at Procermex in San Antonio, "not just for the New York market but for the world market."

Corona Extra is distributed in 150 countries, Mr. Viejo said, so the visibility the signs will derive from being at the so-called crossroad of the world will help build the brand's image internationally as well as in America.

Taking so prominent a place "is another way of saying it's our time to come in and say we're a player" in the global beer business, he added.

In the negotiations with Sherwood Outdoor, Procermex and Grupo Modelo worked with the Gambrinus Company in San Antonio, which handles the Grupo Modelo beer brands — they include Corona Light and Pacifico in addition to Corona Extra — in 25 Eastern and Southern states, the Caribbean and Washington. (The Barton Beers division of Constellation Brands handles the brands in 25 Midwestern and Western states.)

The idea that Corona Extra ought to lease the signs came from Brian Turner, president at Sherwood Outdoor, and Jeffrey Katz, president and chief executive at Sherwood Equities.

The brand had leased smaller signs on the previous incarnation of 1600 Broadway, the Studebaker Building, which was demolished for the new, taller building at the address, which includes 136 condominiums. Those signs, 70 feet high by 22 feet wide, had also been leased by advertisers like Heineken and the NBC television network unit of NBC Universal.

"They're unique in the sense they're twin signs," Mr. Katz said of the newcomers. "It's 'Double your pleasure'; you can't not see them."

His reference to the Doublemint gum slogan slyly alluded to that brand being present in Times Square, too, along with sibling gums sold by the Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company. They are advertised on a large, splashy illuminated billboard on 1500 Broadway, about four blocks from where the Corona Extra signs are to hang.

Mr. Katz and Mr. Turner declined to discuss the financial terms of the lease for the signs, as did Mr. Viejo. However, signs in premier locations in Times Square can rent for as much as $200,000 to $300,000 a month.

While the Corona Extra signs are big, they are not quite in the category of Times Square billboards known as spectaculars because they are made of flex-face vinyl panels that are backlighted rather than embedded with neon or other special lighting like the nearby signs for Wrigley, Budweiser and other advertisers.

There are two other signs on 1600 Broadway, on the sides facing Broadway and Seventh Avenue. They are being used to advertise the apartments, which Mr. Katz said are scheduled for occupancy in September. The apartments are being sold for prices from about $800,000 to about $3 million.

The two other signs carry the headline, "Imagine living here" — nothing spectacular, to be sure, but at least they do not read "If you lived here, you'd be home by now."

[Kgirl]

Mmmmm that Corona looks good right about now

[LED Sign Man]

Mmmmm that Corona looks good right about now

To the left of the Video boards are LED displays 3 of them are Daktronics LED Video displays, COKE, PRUDENTIAL and SAMSUNG.

The Prudential display is new within a few months and the Coke display is about 2 years old, the Samsung display is about 5 years old.

[Erik Sine]

To the left of the Video boards are LED displays 3 of them are Daktronics LED Video displays, COKE, PRUDENTIAL and SAMSUNG.

The Prudential display is new within a few months and the Coke display is about 2 years old, the Samsung display is about 5 years old.

Who was that masked man?