Commuters and tourists making their way through Times Square this week can expect a blitz of boxing, as promoter Top Rank puts the massive screens of the NASDAQ and Reuters buildings to work touting the upcoming Manny Pacquiao-Juan Manuel Marquez PPV. The video promotions will climax with an unprecedented live, hour-long Pacquiao training session that airs during the afternoon rush hour on Friday. The workout, which will feature Pacquiao prepping with popular trainer Freddie Roach, also will stream online beginning at 5:00pm ET, both on TopRank.tv and through linked banner ads that will appear on various web sites, including that of the Wall Street Journal. Those sites will begin promoting the show with a countdown clock Friday morning. Viewers can access the five-camera shoot of the live workout with a single click or rollover. Top Rank yesterday began airing Pacquiao-Marquez IV commercials four times per hour on the giant screens in Times Square. It will continue to feed programming -- including live weigh-in coverage -- to the LED boards all the way up to the fight on Dec. 10. The NASDAQ board stands seven stories tall and offers about a quarter acre of screen space at the southwest corner of Times Square. The Reuters board, with its slightly smaller screen, faces Times Square from across Broadway.
LET'S GET DIGITAL: Top Rank President Todd duBoef said, "On Friday at 5:30 Times Square will be buzzing like no other place in the world -- and we've bookended it." He added, "It's another platform that connects the audience to our content. It was only five years ago that we were looking almost entirely at 30-second spots and print ads -- in color if we were lucky. Now we're streaming live in Times Square. We're going digital and we're going big." Top Rank will produce the broadcast in conjunction with online streaming host MLBAM, which it signed on with in May. The deal includes a redesigned TopRank.tv website that will roll out in time for the upcoming pay per view, with content expanding next year, likely tied to a subscription model. duBoef said that Top Rank will put more than $1M into digital advertising for this fight, shifting dollars away from broader traditional media. It will put almost half its marketing budget for the fight into digital assets, he said, up from about 25% two years ago. duBoef said, "I'm in targeted traditional mediums. And I've broadened it to the general fan base with the digital attack. It's almost the reverse of what we used to do."
