Montclair State Students Make Their Mark On Times Square

MONTCLAIR, NJ — If you’re walking through Times Square this week and happen to look skyward, keep your eyes peeled for Montclair State University’s contribution to the landscape.

MSU students recently produced a 30-second short film promoting the university’s Feliciano School of Business, which will run on a “prime-location” Times Square video billboard through Sunday, April 2, school administrators said.

Featuring the MSU mascot Rocky the Red Hawk and a cameo appearance by MSU President Susan Cole, the piece will run four times per hour throughout the week.

According to Feliciano School of Business Dean Greg Cant, advertising on a billboard in Times Square would have previously been too pricey to consider, but business school donor and namesake Mimi Feliciano made it possible when she won it at a charity auction and presented it as a gift to the university last fall.

It was then up to the business school to devise a plan that would best utilize the one-of- a-kind opportunity, Cant said.

“It’s one of the most iconic, photographed spots in the world,” enthused Cant. “Normally when we think about advertising, we think about buses, billboards and tags on the bottom of computer screens. It was a completely different process to think about advertising in such a large, busy space: what would make us stand out in that highly stimulating environment?”

The university decided to pose that question to the student body and launched the “Feliciano Times Square Challenge,” inviting students to pitch their film concepts.

The winning storyboard was produced with the supervision of MSU's School of Communication and Media News Producer (and Montclair resident) Steve McCarthy.

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Photo: Montclair State University