Clear Channel takes over advertising at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport

Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport will start to look a little more like Times Square as a new advertising agency remakes it with video walls and more illuminated displays.

Media firm Clear Channel Airports won a contract for all advertising at the airport for the next 10 years.

The company previously sold ads in Concourse G in Terminal 1 through an agreement with Delta Air Lines. Meanwhile, JCDecaux North America, the largest outdoor advertising firm in the U.S., was responsible for ads in the rest of the airport. It generated $2.2 million in sales at the airport last year and paid rent of $1.5 million to the Metropolitan Airports Commission.

The new agreement makes Clear Channel the first media company in more than a dozen years to handle marketing in the entire airport, which attracts 36 million passengers a year.

"The airport is the first impression you have to the city," said Jason King, spokesman for the company, which is a unit of iHeart Media Inc. of San Antonio.

For advertisers, he said airports represent a chance "to communicate with their audience from the time they arrive at the airport through their dwell time to their departure."

By the end of July, as part of the contract with the airport commission, Clear Channel will begin to add more video screens in the airport, including double-sided video walls, integrated flight information displays and other signage.

"The added benefit of digital is that it offers an advertiser the flexibility to change their ad periodically over the course of the day or to even have a different ad running at a different gate to reach a different audience," King said.

The ability to coordinate ads across the airport more efficiently may lead to higher revenue, said Patrick Hogan, spokesman for the airport commission.

"Airports like Minneapolis-St. Paul International represent a great opportunity for companies to present their brands to tens of millions of travelers each year," Dennis Probst, the airport commission's chief operating officer, said in a statement. "When done well, advertising can also enhance the ambience of the facility, providing color and interests to people using the facility."

A recent Nielsen study commissioned by the company showed that nearly 60 percent of business and leisure travelers believe that advertising in airports is an indicator of high-quality brands and more than three-quarters of leisure and business travelers say they notice airport digital ads.

Nicole Norfleet • 612-673-4495

Twitter: @nicolenorfleet