Advertising Definitely Done On Sydney Harbour Bridge A Few Days Ago – It’s A Dark Mark

This time last year, Sydney was in arguing about advertising on the Sydney Opera House with regards to The Everest horse race.

Last Monday, we published concerns the Sydney Harbour Bridge south-east pylon was being used for advertising the Rugby League World Cup 9’s inside their NRL Grand Final Week celebratory projections.

And in the next 4 days, we expect The Everest horse race will make national (or international) headlines again as Racing NSW announces they will host the barrier draw of the race on the southern Sydney Harbour Bridge pylons (most likely just the south-east pylon).

So why has Bloomsbury, a famous book publisher, decide to do this last Tuesday night?:

It was done as part of a social media campaign where the fictitious Death Eaters’ Dark Mark appears on Australian landmarks as part of a promotion for a re-release of Harry Potter & The Goblet Of Fire. The book was first released in 2000, 19 years ago.

We can confirm through webcam images of the Sydney Harbour Bridge that the projections were done for at least 25 minutes. It may have been even longer as the webcam stopped at 11pm at night.

This most likely is a form of guerrilla marketing but in the end, why did they choose to do this in what most likely will be a controversy-ridden week about the Sydney Harbour Bridge pylons & the concept of advertising?

We can’t confirm whether approval was given by the NSW Government for this projection.

Last year, in the midst of The Everest controversy, The Chaser, a satirical comedy group well known for their APEC Summit – Sydney 2007 motorcade stunt did something similar by promoting ‘advertiser’ (actually, radio host) Alan Jones’ phone number by projecting it onto buildings such as the Sydney Opera House, NSW Parliament and even Alan Jones’ own home (which is located in a well-known Sydney building). However, that was clearly for satirical comedy purposes.

Protests banner’s have often gone up on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, even this week, clearly without approval. However, it is a form of protest, not a commercial advertisement though they were fined for putting an advertisment up, which in some respect it was. It’s not even a form of Government-approved advertisement on the Sydney Harbour Bridge for an organisation of a currently-being-protested cause. So protests aren’t of great concern for the Sydney Harbour Bridge’s integrity though sometimes those protests can be a huge inconvenience when not government-approved.

Bloomsbury’s projections are clearly a commercial advertisement, guerrilla or not and is using the Sydney Harbour Bridge pylons as a billboard regardless if approval was given or not.

Bloomsbury should have know better given the current climate for this sort of activity.

Bloomsbury Sydney has been contacted for comment.