Get an Eiffel of the new Citroën C3!

Whoa, that cheesy headline is not mine. Credit for that goes entirely to Citroën PR who are pushing their 90th birthday celebrations. It also happens to be the 120th birthday of the Eiffel Tower and, not letting a marketing opportunity slip, Citroën are once again uniting the two French icons for a light show which is set to launch on 22 October.

In the late 1920s and early 1930s the Eiffel Tower was a piece of advertising scaffolding supporting giant Citröen signage. At the time it was the world’s largest advertising sign. Now, in 2009, the two will combine again with a 12 minute light show that will run for three months.

Footage of the opening night will broadcast across the net with images captured from cameras placed inside several new Citröen C3s parked nearby in specially selected locations. It’s all about showing off the C3’s massive front windscreen, you see.

More detail in Citröen’s presser below.

GET AN EIFFEL OF THE NEW CITROËN C3!

To celebrate 90 years of Citroën and 120 years of the world famous Eiffel Tower, the two are joining forces again, after 75 years, in a stunning display of ‘Créative Technologie’.

Every night for three months from 22nd October, a special 12-minute light show will take place on the Eiffel Tower – one minute for each decade the ‘Iron Lady’ has stood proudly in the heart of Paris.

At 8.00pm on 22nd October – to mark the first of these displays – Citroën will be streaming live footage of the event from webcams mounted in 10 new Citroën C3’s, which will be positioned at key vantage points around the tower itself.

The footage will be broadcast at www.toureiffel.citroen.com, and visitors to the site will be able to change viewpoints to take in the display from all angles. As well as taking advantage of the new C3’s sensational ‘Zenith’ windscreen, the webcam pictures will be displayed in vertical 9:16 format – a revolution for internet video.

The Zenith windscreen on the new C3 – Citroën’s latest model – provides a driving experience like no other, with a huge glass screen that soars above the heads of front occupants offering unprecedented levels of visibility – perfect for admiring the full height of the Eiffel Tower and the new light show in all its glory.

Citroën and the Eiffel Tower enjoyed a historic partnership for almost ten years between 1925 & 1934, when André Citroën had the Company’s name displayed in lights on the iconic structure. A total of 250,000 light bulbs and 600 kilometres of electric flex were used to make the 30 metre high letters. The spectacle was recorded in the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s largest advertising sign. The illuminations were so bright that Charles Lindbergh used the tower as beacon when coming into land after his solo flight across the Atlantic.