The International Advertising Association (IAA) – India Chapter event, backed by Axis Ad-Print-Media, was held on August 8 at the Taj Lands End in Mumbai. The event saw media and advertising biggies in attendance, including Sam Balsara, Pradeep Guha, MG Parameswaran and Preeti Vyas Gianetti, with a special guest speaker, Daniela Krautsack.
Krautsack is the founder and communications strategist of Austrian agency, Cows in Jackets and is referred to as ‘the guru of unconventional media’. Most recently, Daniela spoke at the Cannes Lions 2008 on future concepts of cities, lighting concepts and thoughts of how to implement OOH (out-of-home) advertising in the years and decades to come. With a background of 17 years in advertising, Krautsack set up Cows in Jackets in Vienna four months ago. The agency works in non-traditional media, especially OOH and ambient media. She explained that the ‘cow’ is a metaphor for everything that stands out in advertising and the ‘jacket’ is representative of new fashions, ideas, designs that come and go each year.
At the event, she shared her insights and experiences on creative outdoor media, as well as interesting findings from her primary study in ambient media that she undertook in 2005.
Krautsack had travelled to 25 cities across the globe and spoke to people about ambient media, to understand new technology and what creates that ‘wow’ effect. Her presentation showed images of cluttered cities with big hoardings and bright lights. She said, “I noticed in all cities that there was a certain kind of clutter, a visual pollution of lights.” She gave the example of Sao Paolo, where the mayor decided to retract all hoardings and outdoor communication and the city was left bare. This is similar to what was done in Chennai and even in Bangalore, where 50 per cent of the hoardings are being taken off.
Krautsack said there is no limit to where ambient media ideas can be executed, like on floors, cranes, historical sites, humans and even on animals! She gave an example of how the German manufacturers of cleaning equipment, Kärcher, offered to clean the historical site of Mount Rushmore in the US, by using water pressure machines. The company’s name wasn’t advertised anywhere, except for the presence of its name on the men cleaning the structure. Thus, without using any form of advertising as such, the company was able to popularize itself. Krautsack added that Kärcher has executed 80 such projects in the last five years.
She also spoke at length of Adidas’ ambient-advertising initiatives. In June, for the Euro Cup, the company placed a large cutout of a popular footballer in a giant Ferris wheel, with eight arms that seemed like he was holding and turning the Ferris wheel. In the evenings, this would light up to provide an extremely eye-catching endorsement.
In Switzerland, Adidas created a larger-than-life huddle of 12 football players, modeled in hot wax, which stood at a height of 70 metres at the main Zurich station. To anyone standing in the foyer of the station and looking up, it would seem like he or she was standing under the huddle; this created immense excitement amongst football fans and others too.
Krautsack pointed out that it wasn’t only the idea, but also the material used that created a wonderful ambient creative. She gave an example of how grannies would sit and ‘knit’ billboards out of wool. A Finland-based company also projected images on fog and raindrops using it as canvas. This can even be used as a touch screen with interactivity.
Companies can play with the environment in a clever way, but each idea should be conceived specially for a country. An idea that was used in London cannot necessarily be executed in India too, said Krautsack.
A great instance of an ambient creative was provided by HSBC, which created ‘grass photographs’ in Wimbledon using an innovative grass-growing process. The billboard featured three Wimbledon representatives that were created by projecting black and white negatives onto light-sensitive grass – the grass was grown in a dark room for 12 hours each day for more than a week. The special grass grew at variable rates, according to the modified light exposure. Thus, the resulting image developed on a living canvas.
Krautsack talked about how ambient media allows you to experience products. For its camera phone, LG wanted to depict the clarity of the camera, which was a USP. For this, the company put up large, live screen images of the front and back of the phone on a surface. As people passed the first image, it would ask them to smile and then click a photo. By the time they reached the second live screen, their photos would be displayed on it.
Swedish furniture giant, IKEA, also converted a train into a display in Japan, by placing its colourful sofas in the compartments. This surprised passengers, who were delighted at the thought of sitting on comfy, colourful seats on the tube.
At an overnight music festival, Diesel created shower cubicles and gave away free towels, shower gel and even underwear. At another music concert, where talking on the phone is usually impossible because of the sound levels, Nokia created soundproof rooms where people could make calls, and thus, try the then new Nokia 3250.
“When brands consistently use ambient media, it pays off, since the brands are perceived as innovative, inventive and intelligent,” Krautsack pointed out. She gave examples of how McDonald’s does a lot of ambient advertising. In the US, to advertise its breakfast meals, a large egg was placed on a tall pole. Everyday at the time that McDonald’s served breakfast – between 6 am and 10:30 am – the egg would crack open. This was done by Leo Burnett Chicago.
McDonald’s also created an innovative bus shelter advertisement by way of a mirror image. Only half an ‘M’ from the golden arch of McDonald’s was pasted on the side of the shelter and the mirror image created the remaining half.
Another brand that does consistent ambient advertising is the car company, Mini. Mini cars are often mounted on billboards; and in one instance, the car was placed on the top floor of a building with its headlights pointing skywards, creating an attention gripping scene. In another instance, one side of a building was pasted with an image of a vending machine with Mini cars placed in it. A car was also mounted on a hoarding, with an image of people pulling it towards them; the sign read ‘Tug of Love’. Krautsack pointed out that Mini does not spend just 2-3 per cent of its total ad spends on ambient, but almost 30-40 per cent.
She also talked about how small ideas could have a big impact and it was not necessary that only a company with big ad budgets could do something innovative. Ogilvy Frankfurt, for instance, created an innovative ‘Balcony’ campaign for IKEA’s storage boxes, where balconies of a building were wrapped in stickers that made them look like storage boxes that were on offer at IKEA.
A company that makes gaming puzzles, Ravensburger, unveiled an ambient campaign where a construction site was innovatively used as part of the campaign. In front of the construction site, where rubble was lying in a pile, Ravensburger put up a billboard that resembled the Ravensburger puzzle box with an image of the White House on it, thus depicting the idea of solving a puzzle.
Krautsack also applauded Indian ambient advertising, like the campaign for the Calcutta School of Music, where musical notes were hung on electric and phone wires, using them as staves. Another campaign she commended was that of Lead India.
She talked about how we are seeing technology as in the sci-fi movie starring Tom Cruise, Minority Report. In Japan, customized advertising is being done, where a camera scans a person, comes to know whether it is a male of female, and the person’s approximate age and then gives out advertising accordingly.
Talking about larger-than-life advertising, Krautsack questioned, “Is it a landmark or land‘art’ now?” People find such advertising so attractive that they pose in front of these and get pictures taken.
She also asked, “Why not have advertisers sit on the table for such kind of advertising?” She pointed out that such innovative ambient advertising needs much time for preparation and planning.
Krautsack concluded by saying that ambient media is really about finding new and unusual places and about being unconventional.
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