An outdoor advertising company has put up rotating messages on 10 electronic billboards in the Chattanooga area in tribute to the late rocker David Bowie, similar to those erected after the five servicemen were killed in the city last year.
"It's just a tribute to a rock 'n' roll legend," said Scott LaFoy, general manager of Fairway Outdoor Advertising in Chattanooga. "I think it's the most significant rock 'n' roll death since [the late Beatle] George Harrison."
The billboards show an image of Bowie along with the years of his birth and death - 1947 to 2016.
LaFoy said similar billboard messages were put up in other markets as well as Chattanooga. But, he said, he wasn't aware of those when the billboards here were erected.
"I was a big fan personally," LaFoy said of Bowie.
In the aftermath of the shooting deaths of four Marines and a Navy sailor last summer at an Amnicola Highway military installation, Fairway put up billboard messages featuring the head gear representing the servicemen as a tribute.
The electronic billboards allow the company "to speak to the market in a timely fashion," LaFoy said.
"We felt like this was a message the market would be interested in seeing," he said. LaFoy said the Bowie billboards will be up through Friday.
Albert Waterhouse, president of Waterhouse Public Relations, said the billboard messages for such a popular figure as David Bowie are a way for the company to get its brand noticed, though he's not saying that was its top priority.
Even though Fairway is giving up space and time on its billboards with the Bowie tribute, "it gives them recognition," Waterhouse said.
New research shows that the average person is exposed to 5,000 messages a day.
Companies look for ways to get their brand noticed and "cut though the clutter," Waterhouse said.
Bowie, 69, died of cancer on Sunday.
The BBC reported Thursday that the singer's body has been privately cremated in New York. It said that Bowie's family have said they are "overwhelmed" by the global tributes that have been paid to the singer since his death.
A statement on Bowie's Facebook page also said they were arranging "a private ceremony" in his memory, the BBC said. They also welcomed the concerts and tributes that have been planned, but pointed out they were not officially endorsed.
Some 140 million Bowie albums have been sold since his first release in 1967, the BBC reported.
Contact Mike Pare at mpare@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6318.