TARGET LIGHTSHOW

Objective: Promote the 2010 fall and holiday season apparel lines and gain attention from the fashion set during New York’s Fashion Week.
Payoff: 3,000 people on street level; 12.6 million Google hits from the event.
Seeking to turn heads at New York’s fall Fashion Week, Target rented street-facing rooms in Manhattan’s Standard Hotel in the fashionable Meatpacking District. At sundown, the lights went up. Throwing open the rooms’ white curtains, 66 dancers dressed in day-glo suits wriggled and writhed to a score by DJ Sam Spiegel while the a light show cycled through a spectrum of color combos — a Close Encounters-like light show reinterpreted for Gen-Y.
Target installed bleachers on Little West 12th Street to provide seating for some of the 3,000 to 5,000 onlookers, invited celebrities to jazz things up, and Web-casted, video-recorded, and photographed the event for maximum media and social media exposure.

GERMANWINGS “PLANEMOB”

Objective: Generate awareness of Germanwings’ cheap airfares via viral content.
Payoff: Almost 400,000 YouTube views.
Discount European air carrier Germanwings demonstrated how a few people with Flip cameras can produce a viral online video ad to great effect.
Passengers, planted by Germanwings, crammed into coach seats on discount competitor Ryanair’s flight in April 2010. Ryanair, while known for its cheap flights within Europe, is also notorious for charging passengers to use the rest room. As passengers settled into their Ryanair flight, cardboard signs started popping up. “I hate this ‘choose your seat’ thing!” reads one loosely translated sign. “Look out the window; at least that’s free!” reads another. Germanwings’ passengers recorded the goings on as the last sign flashed, “Next time, let’s just fly Germanwings.”
A quick, inexpensive advertisement, all for the cost of a few (cheap) Ryannair plane tickets and a Flip camera.
 

“MONTH AT THE MUSEUM” CONTEST

Objective:Attract young, Web-savvy fans to the Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago.
Payoff:Local and national media exposure; record traffic to the museum’s website.

In July 2010, Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry, seeking to pep up its image and drive patronage, promised one person the chance to spend a “Month at the Museum” — as in, actually live there in a hotel-style room. The winner of the contest would then become a social media machine, Twittering, Facebooking, YouTubing and Flickering about the experience, earning $10,000 for the effort.
The museum expected a few hundred entries, which included essays and videos. It received more than 1,500 from all over the world. The process of selecting the winner engaged more than 400 blogs, almost doubled the museum’s Facebook fan base, and drew in local TV and radio, along with ABC’s “Good Morning America” and other national news and entertainment shows. The contest was so successful, a second one is underway.
 

MINI’S CHALLENGE TO PORSCHE

Objective:Generate customer engagement.
Payoff:YouTube views in the six figures; MINI talked about in the same breath as Porsche.
Unforeseen payoff for a competitor:Carmaker Hyundai jumped in on the game.

MINI has never been big on TV advertising. The British automaker, owned by BMW, broke into the U.S. market a decade ago entirely via guerilla marketing. In Spring 2010, MINI chief James McDowell appeared in a YouTube video challenging Porsche North America to a race (Porsche turned MINI down).
The video, which appeared on YouTube as well as Mini’s website, was shot with Flip cameras, then circulated to leading auto industry bloggers, who wrote about the stunt.
And, in the wide-open world of guerrilla marketing, a third auto company, Hyundai, decided to join in the good-natured one-upmanship, creating its own video challenging MINI to a race. Hyundai’s ballsy effort earned more than 50,000 views and engaged the attention of the auto industry media, some of whom saw Hyundai as the cleverest marketer of the three.
 

GLOBAL WARMING AWARENESS CAMPAIGN

Objective:Bring attention to the issue of global warming.
Payoff:Coverage in hundreds of blogs and news media outlets.

Small businesses can take a lesson from nonprofits and advocacy groups, which often make up for small marketing budgets by creating offbeat campaigns.
The city of Vancouver got a dose of global warming reality when Offsetters, a Canadian organization that advises companies and individuals on how to offset carbon emissions, hung life rafts off the sides of buildings, set up manned lifeguard stands in city parks with “Lifeguard On Duty” signs, and strapped life jackets under park benches with advisory signs for passersby.
The point: That global warming, unchecked, will flood coastal cities. The execution didn’t cost much, but created high shock value that got the attention of local and national media. And the idea was completely tied into the mission of the organization.
 

COPENHAGEN ZOO BUS ADS

Objective: Drive patronage to the zoo for a special exhibit without relying too heavily on expensive TV, radio, and outdoor advertising.
Payoff: Attendance surpassed projections by 30 percent.
The Copenhagen Zoo wanted to promote its new reptile exhibit and drive ticket sales. Take out some ads, right? Or, the zoo’s marketing office could employ the creative capability of graphic printers by using giant wraps. Shrink-wrapped city buses in Copenhagen gave the impression that they were being squeezed by a giant boa constrictor.
Working with city transit authorities on clever schemes like this to turn buses and subway cars into rolling message boards is easily done these days, especially as many cities are looking for new sources of revenue. And an ad that moves around the city all day will be seen by everyone in town.
 

FREE AIR GUITAR GIVEAWAY

Objective: Launch a new local radio station with a low-cost campaign to engage young social media users.
Payoff: Wide distribution of photos on social media sites and mention on local blogs.
Radio stations have long been known for doing live, on-location shows at beaches, shopping malls, and car shows as a way to be more visible. But when launching a new station, FM 96.3 in Glasgow, Scotland, showed how far a few dollars and a creative idea can go to help gain attention.
The station set up empty guitar racks around the city with a sign reading: “Free Air Guitar. Take One.” It was clever enough to get noticed. It was also an idea that was very much in keeping with the spirit of a rock station and its listeners who might be given over to air-guitar solos in the privacy of their own bedrooms.
Photos of the racks popped up in the local newspaper, on blogs, and social media pages, along with numerous comments mentioning how they would have to check out the new station.
 

Source:  allbusiness.com