November 19th, 2008
An Ad Network in Times Square
By Stuart Elliott
The New York Times
The medium, Marshall McLuhan once said, is the message. On a familiar building in Times Square, the messages are becoming a medium.
As the Walgreen Company — the largest American drugstore chain in sales — formally opens at 1 Times Square on Thursday, executives are describing plans for the giant signs that will festoon the building on three sides. The signs include some diagonal displays resembling wings as tall as 17 stories. It will also serve as an advertising network of sorts as Walgreen and its sales representative, a unit of ABC, peddle commercial time to other marketers.