For this week’s Global Tour, MiC focuses on experiential executions with an artistic twist. The three featured brands promoted either a product or a cause with a work of art that involved consumers in the creation of it.
We asked Leslie Krueger, VP marketing and media, Denneboom, to comment on executions that saw pedestrians painting crosswalks with their feet, creating data-inspired images of coffee, and connecting dots on a billboard to reveal an image.
China: Environmental Protection Foundation creates a green space in the city
To encourage people to walk more and drive less, the China Environmental Protection Foundation had pedestrians literally create a greener environment with the soles of their feet. The non-profit placed giant sponges soaked in green paint on either side of 15 busy street crossings in cities across China. They covered the crosswalks with a white canvas outlined with a bare tree. When people walked across the street, the green paint on their shoes left leaf-shaped imprints to bring the tree to life.
Krueger: Someone, far wiser than me, said simplicity hides in plain sight and yet is always difficult to find. This out-of-home advertising conveys brilliant simplicity in both its design and execution. Every green shoeprint reinforced the message of the environmental footprint. It looks as if the posters covered the road traffic lines which probably, and perhaps intentionally, goaded gas guzzling drivers.
I would have loved to be a fly on the wall in the planning process for the ‘what if’ and liability discussions regarding potential road hazards and unwanted green paint on the Jimmy Choo shoes. It was extremely fitting and very smart that the materials were re-purposed and lived on via giant billboards and an art exhibition. A simple idea very well executed.
Click here to read the international story.
Australia: Breville turns coffee into high-tech art
Kitchen equipment brand Breville wanted to showcase the precision and consistency of its new “dual boiler” espresso machine. To do so, the brand created digital illustrations showing the inner workings of the espresso-maker to consumers gathered at the Aroma Festival in Sydney.
As the coffee brewed, the machine displayed real-time data about its flow rate, temperature and pressure. The data was then visualized into a piece of art reflecting the individual make-up of each espresso. The brand printed each design onto a coffee cup and distributed over 2,000 “naked espressos” at the fest.
Krueger: Cool technology and nice connection with Breville’s belief that brewing coffee is both an art and a science. I question if the lineup was for the free latte or the artistic cup sleeve. Perhaps it was a missed opportunity in that there was no visible Breville branding or offers on the pretty sleeves and I would bet the majority of the artistic sleeves were tossed with the cup.
Click here to read the international story.
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United Kingdom: Jessie Ware connects the dots
Singer-songwriter Jessie Ware took an artistic approach to promoting her latest album, Devotion. Working with Red Bull 
and Studio Moross, she mounted a billboard covered with hundreds of dots in London’s Broadway Market. While the new music featured in the album played in the background, passersby were invited to connect the dots, which slowly revealed an image of the singer’s face.
Krueger: At first glance, I thought this was a clever way to engage at a grassroots level – that is until I discovered a time lapse video of the stunt on YouTube. Only a handful of people participated in the actual connecting of the dots including what appeared to be a few hired “dot-connectors.” The stunt was a little subdued for the Red Bull record label.
Jessie Ware undeniably has good hair but not sure that drawing her hair on a poster with a Sharpie is going to make people more interested in her music. That said, the commotion around the poster had some passerby stopping power and brought some good international publicity for the singer. Case in point: we’re talking about Jessie Ware right now.
