It wasn’t, as some have suggested, a government initiative but “the biggest art show in Iceland,” says the media owner behind the stunt. And it’s not bad for business either.
Known as “Auglýsingahlé,” the Icelandic for “advertising break,” the first three days of the new year see the vast majority of Iceland’s digital advertising screens show no ads. This year, they showed a range of pictures of French actor Isabelle Huppert’s face instead, alongside other images of seemingly random factoids and writing fragments.
The stunt went viral last week, with social media accounts speculating that the initiative is designed “to give people a break from the normal ads,” while others assumed it was a government-led ad blackout.
The reality is a little different. When The Drum caught up with Vésteinn Gauti Hauksson, the chief executive of Iceland’s largest digital screen owner, Billboard, he told us the initiative is a collaboration between his company, the art gallery Y …