The idea for this project was born from pure necessity: my parents were put in a horrible situation. They (68 and 61 years old, both from Hitzendorf, Austria) were put totally innocent in this position.
In order to help my dear parents, I mulled over for a few nights how to come up with a solution. One night while I was reading, the following quote by Mark Twain caught my eye: “Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.” It suddenly struck me:
Why not connect online advertising space with real advertising space, thus converting small banner ads into extra-large real-life advertising. That’s how small online squares started to represent real square meters and gave birth to the website “Rent a square meter” (RSQM)!
The whole idea is put into practice on the hill outside my parents’ house – an overall area of 10,000 square meters. Immediately the words “hill” and “advertising” formed a new term in my head: “Hillvertising”. In order for the ads to be seen, a high-quality webcam had to be installed first. Due to the dimensions of the project, which were “slightly” larger-than-life, I also decided right away to try and set a world record with this!
The project “Rentasquaremeter.com” now looks as follows:
Anyone who rents a square receives the following in return for a period of 5 years:
1.) An advertisement banner is placed in full size on the hill and shown online by a webcam *)
Note: To satisfy /new/ laws and regulations, the term of 5 years could be shorter.
2.) An advertisement with a link to the respective website
3.) Participation in the world record attempt for “largest billboard”
4.) Long-term advertising value through an annual lottery **)
Every square on the website (10x10 pixels) represents one real-life square meter and costs just Euro 45.00 for a period of 5 years (equivalent to Euro 9.00 per year).
For example: an advertisement banner of 4x3 squares (40x30 pixels) represents 12 sqm of real-life advertising space. The graphics on the website should therefore be precisely 40x30 pixels or more respectively, since the preview is shown at a larger scale, e. g. 80x60, 120x90 etc. The image on the website will then automatically be reduced. Your full-size banner for "Hillvertising" should also meet a size of e. g. 4 meters x 3 meters! (Don´t forget, we want to make a world record!) If you can’t or don’t want to link a website but want to participate anyway, just send me an email to thomas.kager@dantho.com .