Mazda North American Operations (MNAO) today announced its first ever billboard advertisement in New York’s famed Times Square. Nearly 105 years after the first New Year’s Eve ball dropped at what was then called Times Tower, the 2014 Mazda6 will be a significant feature of the celebratory festivities at One Times Square. More than 117 million people are expected to see the 16,000-plus square-foot billboard, which will show a combination of running and still images of the all-new vehicle starting on December 19, 2012, and running until March 31, 2013.

“The all-new 2014 Mazda6 is the most technologically advanced vehicle we have ever sold,” said Russell Wager, vice president of marketing, MNAO. “To introduce this vehicle to the U.S. in the biggest possible way, we chose the most notable and iconic city in the world. And to have the unique opportunity to access the tallest LED billboard in Times Square is the perfect way to tell the Mazda story.”

Redesigned from the ground up, inside and out, the 2014 Mazda6 features the full suite of SKYACTIV®[1] technologies to offer more power and better fuel economy than the segment’s sales leaders. Making no excuses for its head-turning, stare-capturing style, Mazda6’s sheet metal is nearly identical to the handsome TAKERI Concept vehicle that wowed the world’s auto shows. Available with either a SKYACTIV-G 2-5-liter gasoline engine or new-to-North-America SKYACTIV-D 2.2-liter clean diesel engine, Mazda6 also will be the first production vehicle to feature the brand’s capacitor-based brake energy regeneration system called i-ELOOP. The 2014 Mazda6 will go on sale January 2, priced from approximately $21,000.