Who Turned Off The Lights in Sydney?

APRIL 16, 2016

Neon sky signs once glowed in the dark in Sydney’s CBD and North Sydney from the 1960’s but over time some of the proud names, which still stand, are lifeless at night.

Is a city really significant if it doesn’t have lights. Not according to the skylines of Hong Kong, Singapore, Times Square, Berlin, Shanghai or many of the other global cities. Fading are the Sydney lights of vacant office spaces which burned bright with or without occupants and no longer do. NABERS and Greenstar ratings have made us more aware and responsible for wasting energy and its obvious who the offenders are.

The buildings have become dark two dimensional edifices and its rooftops have become black like the night sky. The names are there but the electricity isn’t turned on. It’s dormant but protecting the position on the building against potential sky signage changes which might cause rights to advertise to be lost.

What happened?

Well, neon signs are old technology and sky signage has changed. So too have Council’s views of the skyline and the right to advertise.

For the past 80 years neon tubing was used almost exclusively to manufacture roof signs with corporate names and logos but the sign industry has had to change. The industry moved in recent years from using neon lit letters to long life, low wattage, light emitting diode (LED) lighting. A further seismic change however is afoot in the sky sign market which will dramatically affect building owners. In the past if a company varied its logo or name then the neon needed to be replaced and to make matters worse once the message remained unchanged for a while it was possible that its audience would take it for granted and may even forget that it existed. On top of that councils have different development control plans (DCPs). City of Sydney Council will allow the major occupant or the building owner the right to have signage but no one else. In North Sydney it’s open to third parties with no connection to the building. It’s like the contrast of San Francisco city where rooftop signage is almost non-existent and New York where animated signs burn brightly and fight for your attention. North Sydney and the City couldn’t be more different in their regulations on the right to advertise.

 Gone are Esso, Caltex, Goldfields but AMP remains in the city even if it once was proudly, Australian Mutual Provident Society. In North Sydney Panasonic, Hitachi, Sharp and McAfee just sit hogging the roof waiting to be replaced. They are no longer active. Sharp is going, Samsung has gone but some stay stoic. The temperature isn’t always right at 122 Arthur Street and the 6 second change to the ASX on 118 Mount Street gives you a microsecond to see if you have made some money or not as you exiting the Sydney Harbour Tunnel…… old technology.

 What’s even more interesting is that the signage rights sit as an income stream on most feasibilities or valuations. Signage rights prices have fallen since we hosted the 2000 Olympics and sky sign advertising for heavyweight international brands like Sony, Sanyo, Canon, QANTAS, LG, Samsung, Panasonic don’t need to be on the Sydney skyline when the business you are chasing is global and their brand has been established. So is it dying? Has the market for rooftop advertising reached its use by date?

 The answer is “No” however the solution may not be obvious to most. It’s a combination of responsive signage, something which is easy to change, and understanding that promoting is now over much shorter periods, and a new approach to marketing. In the movie industry ET held the number one spot for a year but that may not happen ever again. Today movies explode onto the market across the globe in every cinema. Success can be measured in a week and profits booked after a month. It’s a bit like Zara’s marketing strategy. Zara keeps stock runs small but regular. A sought-after item will run out so customers need to acquaint themselves with the store and its current merchandise. Likewise a sky sign should change otherwise its value is likely to be “on sale” or stale. The answer lies in the development of a LED digital screen instead of a static sign. Such a concept gives flexibility to the advertiser. For instance the name Zara could sit on a building with its corporate colours and vary them to our red, white and blue on Australia day as Google does. The brand needs to remain relevant and adaptable not static.

In North Sydney, sky signage expert, Phillip Seale, from PS Contracting is working with me to help package deals that will suit both building owners and advertisers. Phillip has built many roof signs and has organised signage rights deals which include Hyundai, Canon, Samsung and LG. He sees the changes in demand and he can see the gulf which exists between owners’ expectations of long term licences and the changing attitude of advertisers’ towards promotion. In the future the sustainability and the value added by signage rights lies in the acceptance by building owners of new digital technology as an enabler, by creating more short term promotional opportunities.  

That is only viable with the flexibility of signage which is easily changed.

The lights will start to go on again in the sky sign market in North Sydney however they will not be the same as before.