Ocean Outdoor bulks up Manchester presence

Two digital sites, the Portland Tower and the Media Wall@Printworks, have been unveiled.

The Portland Tower site in Portland Street is a double-sided digital 3.1m x 5.8m tower, and the site at the Printworks is a 15m x 7m full-motion digital screen.

The Media Wall@Printworks is located in Manchester's retail district, while The Portland Tower dominates one of the main arterial roads in the city centre.

The other two sites are banners. The first banner, located on Deansgate, is central Manchester's largest banner at 31m x 11.4m, with Skoda as the launch advertiser.

The second Portland Street banner is a double-aspect banner providing 258 square meters of creative canvas on the south-eastern route into the city centre.

These are the first regional sites Ocean has launched since its recent management buyout, backed by LDC, the venture capital arm of Lloyds Banking Group.

Tim Bleakley, chief executive of Ocean Outdoor, said: "These sites mark the second stage of our development plans to push our premium footprint into cities outside of London.

"Ocean now has the seven most spectacular assets in the heart of Manchester city centre and it's a blueprint we plan to replicate elsewhere."

Ocean's Manchester estate also includes Axis@The Hacienda, on the site of Alliance Partners' £35m Axis tower development and three landmark 96-sheet, non-digital backlights in the Trinity Way and MEN Arena areas.

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This article was first published on mediaweek.co.uk