Alive Humans’ body spaces for Advertising: 3 Weird but Interesting Strategies
Of late, I have been trying to dig deep into the concept of Guerrilla Marketing. While trying to do so, I came across the terminology, Forehead Advertising. As the name suggests, the advertising is carried out on a person’s forehead… of course after obtaining consent from the concerned person.
A prominent case study of forehead advertising occurred way back in April 2004. To publicize tC coupe, a new model of the now defunct Scion (a discontinued brand of Toyota), Cunning, a London-based firm conducted an event. The event took place in Times Square. Wherein, 40 young adults, employed by the firm, participated to advertise tC. Cunning made the participants wear one or more of the below messages as temporary tattoos in their foreheads
- tC (Coupe’s model name)
- $16,465 (Price of the car)
- Scion (Company’s name)
Each enlistee got paid $11 per hour. The event ran from 10 A.M – 1 P.M on the day when Toyota launched tC at New York Auto Show.
Much like the above forehead advert, there is this weird “billboard” drive of Air New Zealand in 2009. The airline recruited 30 people. It made them shave their heads. And, stick the below message over their bald heads as temporary tattoos for 2 weeks
“Need A Change? Head Down to New Zealand. www.airnewzealand.com.”
Air New Zealand labelled the advertisements as “cranial billboards”. In return, the temps received either of the below options
- A round-trip ticket to New Zealand (Cost of the ticket was about $1,200)
- Cash reward of $777 (The cash amount was an indirect reference to Boeing 777, a model in Air New Zealand’s fleet)
Likewise, FeelUnique.com, an online beauty store conducted a marketing drive in 2009. The company hired 10 men and women, in a random manner, from 6,000 who applied for the campaign online. The store made them apply the store’s web address as temporary tattoos on the eyelids. And, asked them to wink at strangers. FeelUnique.com paid them 100 pounds.
The London-based firm, Mischief ran the campaign. As per Mischief, the drive generated significant referral traffic to FeelUnique.com… as a result of articles about the campaign which appeared in various media.
Conclusion:
In the past, tattoo-related ads weren’t confined to the heads and eyelids alone. They have extended even to the rounded bellies of pregnant women. But, not all such strategies have turned out into a win-win like the above mentioned three cases. Hence, the instances serve as ideal case studies of how brands leveraged alive humans’ body spaces… for advertising.
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