Burt’s Bees is hoping to stop consumers in their shop-gazing tracks this February as the brand moves its installation art-slash-ads into Vancouver’s Pacific Centre mall for the month.
With creative by Toronto’s Zig, the three installations are designed to promote Burt’s Bees’ natural ingredients by making people think twice about the beauty products they use, Ken Cross, GM, Burt’s Bees Canada, tells MiC.
‘Customers don’t think about what they’re putting on or in their bodies when it comes to personal care products,’ he explains. ‘So we wanted to have a way to visually arrest consumers to make them actually think about it. They very quickly start to ask a lot of questions that we think would be great if, from our perspective, more consumers asked.’
The installations are housed in glass boxes and each features an artistic representation of the above idea. A hunk of lipstick on a plate asks, ‘How much lipstick will you eat in your lifetime?’ while a pile of products stacked into the shape of a baby’s bottle asks ‘How much of what you put on your baby ends up in your baby?’ The installations are sporadically staffed with teams handing brochures and coupons and locations are changed periodically to keep things fresh.
Malls were an ideal venue, Cross says, because the goal was to place installations in high-traffic indoor environments that would provide a high probability of conversion to purchase. The installations previously did a tour through a selection of Toronto malls and the city’s Union Station.
In continuity with the Olympic fever gripping the city in February, there is also an appearance planned at one of the installations with figure skater Jamie Salé, who will talk about the benefits of Burt’s Bees and sign fan autographs. (Salé was a real find for the brand, Cross says, as she was already a convert to the baby products for her two-year-old son.)
The installations will be promoted in Vancouver via ads in The Province newspaper and promotional mentions on local radio. Zig handled the media buy.
