Piccadilly Circus - Location and Sights - Illuminated Signs

Illuminated Signs

Piccadilly Circus used to be surrounded by illuminated advertising hoardings on buildings, starting in the early 1900s, but only one building now carries them, the one in the northwestern corner between Shaftesbury Avenue and Glasshouse Street. The site is unnamed (usually referred to as "Monico" after the Café Monico, which used to be on the site); its addresses are 44/48 Regent Street, 1/6 Sherwood Street, 17/22 Denman Street and 1/17 Shaftesbury Avenue, and it has been owned by property investor Land Securities Group since the 1970s.

The earliest signs used incandescent light bulbs; these were replaced with neon lights, as well as moving signs (there was a large Guinness clock at one time).The very first Neon sign was for the British meat extract Bovril. From December 1998, digital projectors were briefly used for the Coke sign, the first to be computerised, while the 2000s saw a gradual move to LED displays, completely replacing neon lamps by 2011. The number of signs has reduced over the years as the rental costs have increased.

As of 2012, the site has six illuminated advertising screens above three large retail units facing Piccadilly Circus on the north side, occupied by Boots, GAP and a mix of smaller retail, restaurant and office premises fronting the other streets. A Burger King located under the Samsung advert, which had been previously a Wimpy Bar until 1989, closed in early 2008 and was converted into a Barclays Bank.

Coca-Cola has had a sign at Piccadilly Circus since 1954. The current placed sign dates in its original form from September 2003, when the previous digital projector board and the site formerly occupied by Nescafé was replaced with a state-of-the-art LED video display that curves round with the building. Before Nescafé, a neon advertisement for Foster's occupied the spot from 1987 until 1999, and from 1978 to 1987 it was used by Philips Electronics. On 23 November 2007, the very first film was broadcast through the board. The screen also displays information about line closures and delays on the London Underground. Paul Atherton's film The Ballet of Change: Piccadilly Circus was allowed five minutes to show the first non-commercial film depicting the history of Piccadilly Circus and the lights. The former, for several months in 2002, replacing the Nescafé sign, was a sign featuring the quote "Imagine all the people living life in peace" by Beatle John Lennon. This was paid for by his widow Yoko Ono, who spent an estimated £150,000 to display an advert at this location. By late 2011 the screen was the oldest of the six signs, and was upgraded that autumn to be clearer and brighter.

Hyundai Motors sign is the newest of the six, launching on 29 September 2011. It replaced a sign for Sanyo which had occupied the space unchanged since 1987, the last to be run by traditional neon lights rather than Hyundai's computerised LED screen. Earlier Sanyo signs with older logos had occupied the position since 1978, although these were only half the size of the current space.

TDK added its sign in 1990, the space having been previously used by Schweppes (1920-61), BP (1961-7), Cinzano (1967-78), Fujifilm (1978-86) and Kodak (1986-90). The original neon sign remained almost unchanged for twenty years, although in 2001, the colour of the background lamps was changed from green to blue, and the words "Audio & Video Tape" and "Floppy Disks" under the TDK logo were removed. In 2010, the sign was replaced by an LED screen.

McDonald's added its sign in 1987, replacing one for BASF. The sign was changed from neon to LED in 2001. A bigger, brighter screen was installed in 2008.

Samsung added its sign in November 1994, the space having been previously occupied by Canon (1978-84) and Panasonic (1984-94). The sign was changed from neon to LED in summer 2005. The screen was upgraded and improved in autumn 2011.

Piccadilly Lite was added on 3 December 2007, underneath the Samsung and McDonald's signs. This is an LED screen that allows other companies to advertise for both short- and long-term leases, increasing the amount of advertising space but using the same screen for multiple brands. The space was previously occupied by JVC (1978-84), Carlsberg (1984-2003) and Budweiser (2003-7).

LG were added as of February 2007 on the roof of Coventry House, which diagonally faces Piccadilly Circus. Their sign is a large LED video advertising display for LGE, the British arm of the South Korean electronics group. The new display also incorporates a scrolling ticker of Sky News headlines. Before LG, Vodafone had a neon sign installed on that spot, which displayed both their logo and personal messages that could be submitted on a special website and displayed at a certain time and date.

On special occasions the lights are switched off, such as the deaths of Winston Churchill in 1965 and Diana, Princess of Wales in 1997. On 21 June 2007, they were switched off for one hour as part of the Lights Out London campaign.

Other companies and brands that had previously had signs on the site were Guinness, Max Factor, Wrigley's Spearmint, Skol, Air India and Gold Flake (as Will's Gold Flake Cigarettes).