1119164001 (N) by Luke Sullivan & Sam Bennett

Author:Luke Sullivan & Sam Bennett [Sullivan, Luke & Bennett, Sam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2013-03-27T22:00:00+00:00

This truth campaign did happen to employ some of our usual suspects (TV and print), so let’s go back to our self-imposed rule and pretend TV and print don’t exist. How could we promote, say, a retail client that needs some buzz for a new store—without TV or print?

IKEA decided to get buzz going for a store opening in Toronto by putting a living room full of their sleek furniture on the public sidewalk of the train station. But to make it an event, the creatives at Crispin Porter + Boguskya (Mike Lear and Dave Swartz) attached notes to the furniture that read: “Steal me.” The copy went on to ask, “What better way to make a friend than to say, ‘Excuse me, want to help me steal this sofa?’ The two of you will then be able to look back at this day and say, ‘Hey, remember that time we stole that sofa?’ And you’ll laugh. Of course, you and your new friend could always just go to IKEA and buy a Klippan sofa, seeing as they’re only $250.”

People didn’t believe it at first, but after the first two strangers helped each other cart off a couch without the cops rolling up, the whole ensemble disappeared in an 8-minute scene of helpful, harmonious larceny.

Of course, the creative team was across the street filming the whole thing to post on the Web. IKEA repeated the exercise for a store opening in another city, and this time someone dropped a dime to the local news and the event was covered from a helicopter overhead. Roughly 10 grand to pull off, a quarter mil of free airtime, serious buzz, and no TV commercials.

With practice, you should be able to start thinking more and more in big honkin’ ideas like this. Of course, not every job that slides cross your desk will require this type of thinking—just the really fun ones, the big ones, and of course, new business pitches. However, you may be able to create something big and cool out of a small print-and-radio assignment just by finding some nugget of a concept and blowing it up way beyond what’s been asked for.

Shoot one idea through the lens of another.

In a screenwriting book I read years ago, I stumbled on this basic Hollywood trick that seems to apply to what we do here in advertising. To create a story, the author said, “Create one world and then look at it through the eyes of another.”

Long before the term was popular, this author was talking about mash-ups. For instance, Blade Runner is basically an old-fashioned gumshoe detective story seen in the future, right? More recently we had Cowboys & Aliens. Since I don’t mean to go all sci-fi geek on you, how about Brokeback Mountain? . . . One could argue it was sort of a Cowboys and Gay Guys. One world, seen through the eyes of another.

My point is this: thinking in terms of mash-ups may be a good mental exercise

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