Advertising Takes to the Sky

Hey everyone,

There has been a relatively recent interest from companies in using drones in the sky as a way of advertisement. For instance, the NBA implemented drones to light up the night sky of New York with 500 drones as a way of advertisement for the 2022 NBA Draft and its associated sponsor State Farm. For those interested in this, here is a short Instagram video that depicts part of the light show (https://www.instagram.com/p/CfG5k66AKIX/.)

However, now it appears video games are taking their first stab at this, with CandyCrush, the popular sweet-depicting puzzle game, set to send up at least 500 drones into the sky of New York City on Thursday `to celebrate their 10 year anniversary. This is an attempt, as stated by Chief Marketing Operator of Candy Crush, to to “turn the sky into the largest screen on the planet”.

This has raised a number of legal issues around aerospace, public safety, and animal well-being, and drones have been an on-going of litigation for companies like Uber who are attempting to incorporate them into their business model.

You do not have to go far to see that people are not totally on board with this either. Just scroll down to the comments on the bottom of the article attached to this post. I believe it raises some serious questions about consumer-protection, especially in relation to minors and if alcohol, tobacco, and gambling companies will be allowed to essentially broadcast their advertisements to the sky. While not totally on all fours with Video Game Law, the use of this advertisement method seems relevant as it is now being employed by a video game company.

Link to Article: https://gothamist.com/news/500-drones-to-swarm-nycs-skyline-thursday-in-new-advertising-ploy