Talking Points: Guerrilla Art

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Joss Davidge, Business Director of brand experience agency BEcause, is always on the look out for marketing ideas that get people talking.  This week he looks at two campaigns that fuse guerrilla marketing and installation art.

Fundamentally, guerrilla marketing is about employing atypical methods to get noticed. When these unconventional marketing ideas take on attributes often associated with installation art they have the power to really turn heads.  This week I take a look at two examples of recent installations in public spaces that not only cause people to stop and interact but also convey messages.

NY Heart

This year the Times Square Alliance’s annual Valentine sculpture project is an interactive re-imagination of the city’s ubiquitous heart graphic.  Until the end of the month, a cube made up from dozens of clear plastic tubes is on display in New York’s Times Square.

When a sensor button is touched red lights glow in the tubes and form the shape of a beating heart.  The more people gather round the sensor (and hold hands, apparently) the brighter the heart becomes and the faster it pulses.

The heart sculpture was designed by architectural firm BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group) and is meant to symbolise how Times Square is made up of light and people.  It’s a unique and heart-warming take on the heavily commercialised festivities and has certainly made an impression with bloggers and the press.

Tropicana

In the gloom of cold January morning Tropicana brought some light and warmth to Trafalgar Square by installing an impressive man-made sun.  This one day publicity stunt launched Tropicana’s “Brighter Mornings” television and print campaign.  The giant sun was created by art collective Greyworld and took six months to construct.  It weighed over 2,500 kgs and produced the equivalent to 60,000 light bulbs.  Some great pictures emerged of people sitting in deck chairs, wearing sunglasses, basking in the light before most had had their morning cuppa.  The spectacle was captured on video by Tropicana and the edit cleverly released, and going viral, within a matter of hours.

Read more BEcause blog posts. Visit their website, and tweet @becausexm.

Posted: February 17th, 2012 | Author: Leah.Latimer | Filed under: Talking Points | Tags: BEcause, BIG, Greyworld, Joss Davidge, Marketing Blog, Marketing Society blog, Times Square Alliance, Tropicana, Valentine Sculpture | Leave a Comment »

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