Making your own brand shine on Berlin’s landmarks – for this opportunity, major brands like to sponsor the Festival of Lights in Berlin – which has turned into a commercially successful concept.
Berlin, the gray city – that’s how we know it. But Berlin’s streets become particularly colorful on two dates each year: Christopher Street Day and the Festival of Lights. The latter is currently happening for 10 days. Landmarks like the Brandenburg Gate, the TV tower, and Bellevue Palace are lit up by artists, turning the façades into canvases.
This year, the festival’s theme is “Celebrating Freedom,” marking the 35th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9. Artists are expressing this theme through projection video mapping, combining sound and light shows.
Classified ad platform dominating Berlin’s TV tower
Brands also love the opportunity to put their logos and commercials on Berlin’s landmarks. That’s why each year a large number of sponsors stand in line and turn the Festival of Lights also partly into a Festival of Brands, many of them even delivering impressive projection mapping shows.
The former Ebay platform Kleinanzeigen, for instance, has secured a popular spot on Berlin’s TV tower for a poison green projection mapping show that serves as a sustanability campaign for the company. Kleinanzeigen developed it with support of its agencies Group-M and Essencemediacom. Also featured on the TV tower is Sparda-Bank, which launched its Ocean Plastic Bankcard with projection mapping on the Oberbaumbrücke during last year’s festival.
Other brands are opting for artistic presentations instead of showcasing their logos. For instance, Lego, as a premium partner, is featuring creative video mapping with the theme “Play” at the Victory Column. Meanwhile, sponsors like SAP and Cupra are producing unique visuals for the façades of their company headquarters or showrooms.
Thanks in part to this clever sponsorship concept, the Festival of Lights has become firmly established over the past 20 years: Artists from all over the world are involved in the façade shows, attracting more and more visitors to the city specifically for the festival. For Berlin, it is now a commercially successful event that fills hotel beds and brings money into the city, as the local news outlet Tagesspiegel reports
This year, Berlin is pleased with the crowds during the festival’s first few days. The concept has long spread to other cities worldwide, including New York, Toronto, and Luxembourg. However, Berlin remains one of the most renowned light festivals in the world.
The festival began on October 4 and runs until October 13, with projections and light shows taking place daily from 7 PM to 11 PM.
