World record welcome to Euro 2008
20th June 2008
Biggest ever advert greets football fans at Vienna
The world's biggest billboard has been grabbing the attention of football fans flying into Vienna Airport for the closing stages of Euro 2008.
Covering an area of more than 50 football pitches, online betting company Betfair has spent the last four months growing different kinds of plants to spell out the message 'NO.1 FOR FOOTBALL AND STILL GROWING!'. It's now been officially ratified by the Guinness Book of World Records™ as the largest advertisement ever seen.
With dimensions of 1,380m by 316m and total area of 436,000 sqm, local farmers and horticulturists have been working on the field since February. It can be seen on the final approach to Vienna International Airport. The advertisement's official record title is 'The World's Largest Advertising Hoarding'.
It took nine tonnes of wheat seed, 53,000 marigold plants, 1.5 kilometres of cotton netting as well as rape, camomile, mustard, clover, poppies and grass to create the billboard. The individual letters are 44 metres 'high' and up to 41 metres wide.
High resolution photo material and pre-edited audio-video material of the field are available for download at http://billboard.no1forfootball.com.
TV broadcasters: watch out for alerts about syndication via news agencies - otherwise broadcast quality footage is available for ftp download upon request. Footage in beta format is also available. Please contact us under the following telephone number: 00 49 30 288 76 131.
Contact: Press office Betfair, Germany
Felix Poetschke
Tel.: +49 30 288 76 131
Fax: +49 30 288 76 111
Notes to Editors:
Measurements: 1,380 metres x 316 metres; total area: 436,250 sqm
Billboard area is equivalent of:
· 50 football pitches
· 651 tennis courts
· 62 x London's Trafalgar Square
You could fit approximately 4,847,222 footballs in it!
Or Vienna's Ernst Happel Stadion (venue for the final) - 8.9 times
The length is the equivalent of the Eiffel Tower laid end-to-end 4.2 times or...
· 5.7 London Canary Wharf tower
· 7.5 London 'Gherkins'
· 1.7 Burj Dubai (when finished - world's tallest building)
· 135 London Routemaster buses (length), 314 by width
Size of the letters: 44 metres high x 21- 41 metres wide.
Plants used:
"No.1" & "GROWING" = Rape (8kg of seed) + Mustard (10kg seed)
"FOOTBALL" = Grass (40kg seed)
"AND" = French marigolds (more than 53,000 plants)
"STILL" = Poppies (10kg seed)
"FOR" = Earth
Border = Camomile (70kg seed)
Background = Wheat (9 tonnes of seeds)
'Betfair' logo = Cotton - 1.5km x 5.8m wide
Time frame:
18.02.08 Measuring of the field
28.02.08 Sowing of camomile and wheat
Early March Measuring of the letters with a total of 650 measuring points, duration: two days. Afterwards ploughing of the slogan
25.03.08 Sowing of the grass
07.04.08 Sowing of rape/mustard/clover
15.05.08 Planting French marigold
01.06.08 Creation of Betfair logo with lime and cotton geomembrane.
About Betfair:
Betfair developed the first successful betting exchange in June 2000 and now employs over 1200 people, spread across its bases in the UK, Malta and Australia. Driven by cutting-edge technology, Betfair enables customers to choose their own odds and bet against each other, even after an event has started. Betfair processes 5 million transactions a day, more than all of the European stock exchanges combined.
Betfair is the holder of two Queen's Awards for Enterprise in the UK, being recognized for Innovation in 2003 and most recently for International Trade in 2008. Betfair is a licensed betting operator in the UK, and also operates under licenses in Australia, Austria, Italy and Malta.