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.
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 two examples of campaigns that blur the lines between classic outdoor advertising, interactive entertainment and brand experience.
Mercedes Benz: Key to Viano
To promote the Viano, Mercedes-Benz came up with this clever interactive billboard game. Targeting car drivers on a public transport system is always a bit hit and miss. Yet, Mercedes-Benz erected this digital billboard in a busy Berlin underground station, Friedichstrasse. To attract car owners’ attention, Mercedes-Benz created a clever system where people could control the billboard using their remote car keys. When they clicked to unlock the on-screen Viano, using keys from any brand of car, a host of characters emerged from the vans, ranging from bodybuilders and athletes to giant robots – all meant to demonstrate the huge capacity of the vehicles. If a lucky ‘clicker’ revealed the film of an empty van and a waiting chauffeur, they were instantly invited to continue their journey in a chauffeur-driven Viano by a waiting promotional team.
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 recent experiential activity from IKEA.
IKEA appears to execute its marketing strategy with almost text book attention to detail and a keen eye on what consumers want or expect from the brand. This includes its carefully controlled in-store experience, the yellow and blue branding, ever popular quirky television commercials and highly engaging experiential activity.
IKEA: Paris Metro home
IKEA constructed an apartment space in a Paris Metro station that was completely kitted out with goods from the store. To distance the experience from walking around your local IKEA store some bright spark had the idea of allowing people to actually live in the apartment. Fans of the IKEA Facebook page could win the chance to live in apartment for 6 days, their antics being watched by passing commuters through large windows. The main idea was to show Parisians that you could comfortably house five people in just 54m² of space; if you do it the IKEA way. This is not the first time I have seen this kind of activity, but nonetheless it is a fantastic idea and has clearly made quite an impact.
Following last night’s Fellows Dinner with Nicola Horlick, CEO, Bramdean Asset Management our chief executive shares his first thoughts on how marketing can represent itself better to the City.
1. We need to distinguish between the views and attitudes of FD’s generally and “The City”. FD’s may often be responding to what they see as the short term demands of the City, but some people in the City do get the role of marketing and brands, and value it. Martin Deboo at Investec, whose job is to follow the publicly quoted top consumer companies like Unilever and Diageo, went so far as to say that the City is conducting an “irrational love-in with marketing”… Martin’s view may be a bit rosy because of the companies he studies, but I do know that Diageo are particularly good (and unusual) in both measuring and communicating the value and health of their of their brands both internally and to the City. They are a particularly good company for us to follow and hold up as an example of best practice to the rest of the City.
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 different campaign approaches that try to encourage drivers to slow down.
When campaigning to get people to change their behaviour there is a fine line between encouraging good, whilst condemning the fault. We all know that speeding is dangerous and there have been countless attempts to get people to slow down. This week I came across an interesting idea from the Ukraine that tried to shock speeding drivers by giving them a taste of what could go wrong. In contrast, it made me think of a campaign run by Volkswagen that centred more on rewarding those who obeyed the limit.
Pedestrian Ghost
Apparently Ukraine has the highest rate for pedestrian accidents in Eastern Europe. To show motorists the potential consequences of speeding, JWT Ukraine came up with this interesting concept. A customised manhole cover was placed on a zebra crossing that stretched across an inner city duel carriageway. If a driver exceeded the speed limit a mechanism started to blow up a human shaped balloon that inflated in front of the driver causing him to quickly apply their breaks. The real impact of this campaign followed online. One speeding driver caught the inflating ghost on a dashboard camera and uploaded it to YouTube. It quickly became popular as people questioned what it was. Furthermore it sparked a debate about the consequences of speeding and the fact that the “ghost” could have been a pedestrian.
Joss Davidge, Business Director of brand experience agency BEcause, is always on the look out for marketing ideas that encourage people to talk about a brand. This week he looks at two campaigns that not only get people talking, but get the right people talking.
When looking at how to amplify a brand message we think it is vital to stimulate conversation. And when budgets are tight, it’s even more important to focus efforts on discussing the right things with the right people. Here are two imaginative examples of brand campaigns that did just that.
Wimpy Braille Burgers
After introducing braille menus to all Wimpy restaurants across South Africa it was important to get that message directly to the people who would benefit the most. Yet, rather than just announce the news, Wimpy embarked on a campaign that would see the message spread to over 800,000 relevant people just by making 15 burgers. The burgers buns were a little different though, as Wimpy painstakingly created a message in braille on top of each one using sesame seeds. The special burgers were then taken to three of the largest institutions for blind people to deliver the “tasty message”. It caused quite a stir as recipients started to talk about it on Braille newsletters and e-readers spreading the news across South Africa.
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 two examples of how brands are using technology to stimulate or optimise conversation in real-world situations.
The term “social” is on the tip of our tongue for many conversations about how to take a brand experience to another level. Not just online but in real-world activation too. Here are two ideas that use conversation as the foundation of the concept, not just for post-experience amplification.
Heineken personalised QR t-shirts
As we roll into the new year and winter is still demanding we wrap up warm, peoples thoughts are drifting towards the summer and, what has now become a summer staple for many, the music festival. At the Open’er Festival last year, festival goers could go to the Heineken U-Code dome and create personalised QR codes, which they could then stick onto themselves for others to scan and read at will. I have talked about QR codes before in this blog but this is a great example of how Heineken took the technology away from simply showing product information and made it a tool for social interaction. The concept is closely aligned with the idea that people go to music festivals not only to have fun but to also spark up conversation with strangers. For Heineken though, it was also a fantastic way to make sure its message “open your world” was seen across the whole festival site.
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 explores two ways that Toyota has used touchscreen technology to excite, inform and attract customers.
Scion Surface Experience
Scion, a marque of Toyota developed for the North American market, recently used Microsoft Surface technology. The Scion Surface Experience claimed to offer “a unique brand experience, presenting product and culture in an unforgettable way”. Using special cards, users could explore features of the car, statistics and play with on screen games or flip the cards over to create a layered music track. This allowed consumers to create their own personalised brand experience, which they could then share with friends and strangers on-site or worldwide via social media. The touchscreen installation is more than just an information point that demonstrates key brand messages; it is also a way of ensuring that consumers are aware that Scion has its finger firmly on the pulse.
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 how location based-gaming is ripe for development by brands.
This week I’m going to come at this topic from two angles. The first video is a fantastic new campaign from Nike, which uses mobile technology and depends on real world actions for players to join in. The second video does the same but is just a game. Both are examples of how far brands could potentially go to encourage deeper involvement and interaction by using location-based gaming.
Nike Catch the Flash
I think this campaign is brilliant. 50 runners were hooked up to GPS tracking devices and for 90 minutes they jogged through the streets of Vienna wearing reflective jackets. Players had to then locate runners using a mobile app, chase them and take a photo. The flash of their cameras would reveal a number on the back of the jackets and the person to collect the most numbers was declared the winner. Nike has done such a great job of taking a trending technology and applying it to its brand. This game is fun, interactive, encourages running and healthy competition.
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 how brands are creating retail ‘lands’ and ‘worlds’ to enhance the shopping experience.
In the lead up to Christmas the news is already full of stories about shopper behaviour and how retailers are struggling to attract shoppers out onto the high street. This trend isn’t just for Christmas and more brands are seeing value in branded retail experiences – thrilling shopper’s senses as well as catering to their needs.
Android land
Telstra, one of Australia’s leading telecoms companies has got together with Google, HTC, LG, Motorola, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson to create Android Land in an apparent attempt to challenge the dominance of Apple’s retail space. Android Land goes all out to excite the consumer with Android robots, experience zones that feature popular Android applications on giant screens and some areas of the store even smell like gingerbread. Yes, gingerbread. It is markedly different from the minimalist design of Apple’s stores but is bound to attract some attention. It will be interesting to see if this kind of collaborative brand experience is set to make an appearance in other cities around the world.
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Top presentation on how to win in 5 years by @brucedaisley http://t.co/omZXhrPq Would you share more at our digital lunch at the Gherkin?February 22, 2012 6:50
The fashion industry directly puts £21bn into the UK economy. #LFW http://t.co/J8bfq5jaFebruary 22, 2012 4:57
#BookClub: Marketing Planning by Malcolm MacDonald & Hugh Wilson reviewed by Karen Davies from Triniti Marketing http://t.co/QLu06ZGMFebruary 22, 2012 4:54
