• by December 5, 2008

Insert live text messages directed at passersby into projected outdoor billboards and you've got an innovative new campaign created by Omnicom's TBWA/Chiat/Day New York on behalf of Pernod Ricard's Jameson Irish Whiskey.

The traveling ad show was set to launch in New York City Friday night, at high foot-traffic locations in Chelsea, the Lower East Side, Brooklyn's Williamsburg--and a fourth site still undetermined as of late Friday afternoon when Marketing Daily spoke with TBWA/Chiat/Day Creative Director James Cheung.

The projected ad moves from place to place in search of Jameson's target audience, Cheung explained. For instance, if the Knicks had been playing basketball at Madison Square Garden, that neighborhood could have been a target.

Once in place, the ad is projected onto a wall and a person begins typing real-time text messages aimed at specific people passing and then responding to their reactions (such as "Yes, you, in the blue shirt"). The projections are provided by event marketing agency City Eventions with--at least for launch night--the texting handled by Cheung himself.

As he awaited his debut on the streets, Cheung called the live ads a combination of "chatroom, out-of-home and conversation piece," adding that he was unaware of "anyone else who has done this before."

The conversational wall projections will move on to Los Angeles on Dec. 19, while projected ads without the live messages also begin this month in Boston, Chicago, Denver and Minneapolis. Jameson has also launched a new radio ad in 20 markets, and a trade campaign highlighting that the brand is "Defying the Economic Downturn." Jameson cited AC Nielsen figures showing dollar sales up 33% in the six-month period ending mid-October.