Media centre

Monday 8 Sep 2008

BIGGEST EVER STATION ADVERT SIGNALS SUPPORT FOR CHARITY

Region & Route:

National

Network Rail has unveiled the largest advertising billboard ever installed at its managed stations - free of charge. The advertisement for the company's charity of choice, NSPCC, is six-times bigger than a regular 48-sheet billboard. It is also as wide as the length of two London buses, a train carriage or a cricket wicket. The advertisement will be in place on the main concourse at London Bridge station for at least one month.

The record breaking advertisement is around 19m long and almost 6m tall. It spells out the word 'happiness' with pictures of life-size children sitting on each letter, which are up to 2m tall.

Jerry Swift, head of corporate social responsibility for Network Rail commented on how this project got the green light: "We are always looking at new ways in which we can support our charity of choice. We identified that with London Bridge under redevelopment, that there were opportunities to use a great advertising space that wasn't being used commercially. And rather than just do a normal ad, we thought we’d go one better and create the biggest advertising hoarding we've ever done at our stations. That way we can shout louder than we ever have about our support for NSPCC, which does fantastic work to help children and their families all over the UK. We're really proud to be able to support NSPCC in getting its message out to the millions of people who travel through London Bridge station each day."

John Grounds, NSPCC director of communications, says: "Thanks to Network Rail, this is a unique opportunity for us to tell millions of passengers that the NSPCC’s work changes children’s lives for the better, every day. Our hope is that this ‘happiness’ message will inspire people to take a moment out of their journey, and support us to end cruelty for even more children."