Brands like WhistlePig, Kia and Comcast are finding ways to combine sustainability and marketing efforts, thanks to a patented film that can turn solar panels into out-of-home advertising.
Sistine Solar, a company founded in 2012 by two engineers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, offers a protective film for solar panels called SolarSkins—a material that can be printed with brand messaging, imagery or simply mimic the tiles or shingles beneath a rooftop solar array.
“It’s the next step or the next evolution [in out-of-home advertising],” Marlene Towns, adjunct marketing professor at Georgetown University, told Adweek. “To the extent that you can combine energy efficiency and advertising promotion, it can be really novel.”
Skirting billboard restrictions
Using a process similar to perforated vinyl, Sistine Solar prints imagery onto hundreds of tiny dots that allow the sunlight to pass between them. The film reduces the capacity for power generation by 10-15%, though many projects include covered and uncovered panels, meaning the overall reduction is much smaller.
“One of the problems that solar was having was the aesthetics,” Oliver Parker, president and owner of Sistine Solar, told Adweek. “It was difficult to do anything other than black or blue panels on a roof, and there were a lot of people that were resisting that.”
When whiskey-maker WhistlePig began its transition to 100% solar energy in 2020, it was looking for more than clean energy. Its 500-acre farm and distillery in Shoreham, Vermont, sits just off a public road. Local regulations outlaw traditional billboards in an effort to prevent large-scale signage that would impede views of the state’s natural beauty, so traditional out-of-home was off the table for the brand.
“They wanted solar on their roof, but they really didn’t want big black panels, and so they held off for a couple of years,” Parker explained. “One of the installers had seen our product and took the idea to them.”
The brand worked with Sistine Solar on a logo design for the panels, which includes the brand name over a background of whiskey barrels. By adding SolarSkins to the rooftop panels, WhistlePig was able to highlight its brand presence along the road in a way that respected the billboard ban. The rooftop portion of its array, even with the overlay, generates roughly 4,500 kilowatts of energy each month—enough to power about five American homes.
“We like to say [we turn] sunshine to cocktail,” Liz Rhoades, head of whiskey development at WhistlePig, told Adweek. “It generates enough energy for 500,000 Maple Old Fashioneds—with our PiggyBack Rye, of course.”
While many solar arrays are positioned in a way that isn’t ideal for a billboard, the slant of the panels and hills around the distillery means that WhistlePig’s rooftop display is easily visible to anyone driving by. While it isn’t open to the public for tours, Rhoades said the branded panels make great content. They also make it easy to spot for anyone visiting the brewery for a media event or private tasting.
Targeting satellites
So far, there aren’t more than a few examples of brands using SolarSkin in place of billboards, which might not be too surprising given the investment required for solar panel installation.
Still, as solar tech continues to get cheaper and the demand for clean energy increases, it’s likely to become more appealing.
In one example, Comcast installed a branded array of solar panels in the middle of a retention pond outside of Universal’s Orlando theme parks in Florida. Because the logo only covered a small portion of the panels, the array generates almost as much as uncovered panels. At Kia Motors’ California headquarters, Sistine Solar installed added the automaker’s logo to rooftop panels.
While rooftop panels aren’t visible from the street, they do show up on Google Maps in satellite view.
“It’s a branding opportunity,” Anthony Occidentale, former chief technology officer and current strategic advisor at Sistine Solar, said. “You can design it like WhistlePig, on a slanted roof, which is really great. But from satellite imagery, you can see the branding [on a traditional rooftop array], which is pretty cool.”
