Politics, Billboards & Champagne

By JULIETTE ROSSANT Berkeley-based Project Billboard, whose co-founders include Alice Waters of Chez Panisse, has reached a deal with Clear Channel, reported the New York Times this morning. In exchange for two billboards in two different, nearby locations for the same price as the original one, Project Billboard will tone down its poster from a bomb to a dove. (The previous bomb billboard poster is displayed in the previous blog entry "Politics, Chefs & Billboards -- both available at Project Billboard.) The bottom line came straight down to legal contracts, and those lay ultimately with the third party, Marriott, site of the original billboard. Kathleen Duffy, director of PR for Marriott hotels in New York, told me yesterday how it worked. "Clear Channel and Spectacolor, they find the advertisers and present the ads to us," she explained. "Several weeks before, they told us there was a potential advertiser for the space. We understood that it was a billboard to 'get out the vote.' " Upon sight, however, Marriott decided to invoke a long-standing contract stipulation that it may reject an ad based on political or sexual content. "This is the first time we have been presented with this type of ad [i.e., political]... We reserve the right not to have an ad with political content." For those who believe that Berkeley harbors only wild radicals, this case proves them wrong. Project Billboard recognized the legal contract [i.e., the legal rights -- very important stuff to those Berkeley liberal types] and decided to compromise. Very mature, very astute, very constructive. So Project Billboard has come out ahead. Their message is getting out and even received extra Media coverage due to the controversy. The dove poster will be displayed on the Conde Nast building's billboard at Broadway and 42nd, while a wrap-around billboard on the W Hotel at Broadway and 47th will run a ticker of the "Total Cost of Iraq War," according to the US Newswire announcement released last night by Project Billboard. Clear Channel is coming out well, too, having been equally mature and generous in making amends to Project Billboard when a subcontracting party (Marriott) balked at the original agreement. Alice, aren't you serving a 1988 Krug Brut these days at Chez Panisse? -- I think Project Billboard should crack open a bottle.