Business Notes: Advertising

Who says Times Square has lost its famous gaudy sparkle? At 11:53 p.m. on New Year's Eve, Coca-Cola flipped on the switch to launch its contribution to Broadway's born-again glitz: a $3 million, 55-ton billboard featuring a four- story Coke bottle made of fiber glass. A high-tech version of the Coke sign that has reigned in various Times Square locations for 75 years, the billboard contains a mile of neon tubing, 60 miles of optical fiber and more than 13,000 incandescent light bulbs. Controlled by a robotic animation system, the giant bottle pops its cap, a straw emerges, and the soda level rises and falls as if King Kong were guzzling it. The optical fiber sparkles to give the appearance of a carbonated brown liquid.

The sign, which goes into full computer-controlled action next month, is part of a comeback in flashy Times Square billboards. But this time most of them were erected by Japanese companies, including Canon, Sony, Fuji Film and Suntory liquors.