Creative International Campaigns – Take Notes America!
Having a major in International Public Relations reminds me to look at communication strategies in other areas besides the United States. As I was on MediaLife Magazine, I read an article about a very creative campaign done in Serbia. As a way to influence people to visit the MK Mountain Resort Kopaonik in Serbia, the resort hired two creative agencies to come up with a very out of the box summer ad campaign. The agencies came up with the idea to hang up huge pairs of lungs onto existing billboards in the city of Belgrade.
According to the article, each lung weighed 15 pounds, measured 6.5 by 13 feet, were made of Lexan, and started out to be very white, almost blindingly white. What bought the attention to this form of advertising was the fact that they turned gray and gotten darker overtime due to the outside elements. A spokesperson from one of the creative agencies stated, “Our intention, together with the client, was to actually show people what they inhale day by day and at the same time, invite them to visit the beautiful resort and ‘clean’ their lungs even for a few days.”
Some of the great ideas that they used were to hang the lungs up alone, with nothing identifying where they came from and why they were there. At the end of the campaign, a small sign was placed near the bottom of the lungs, stating, “Take a deep breath, MK Mountain Resort Kopaonik.” The advertisement was very eye catching and mysterious and it also illustrated the problem of pollution in the air. It also stated in the article that the advertisement generated a lot of buzz, since people began referring to the lungs as “Lungs of Our City,” and newspapers and bloggers initiated discussion about air pollution.
As I analyzed the success of this campaign, I decided to think of this being in a highly populated area in Philadelphia. If there were huge lungs in areas by City Hall or Love Park, people will remember seeing them in their daily commute and wonder why they are there. As they begin to get darker, that will only make people take a double look at the advertising and become even more intrigued by it. By the end of the campaign, people will find out it was a stunt to convince people to go to a resort where there is cleaner air.
This campaign was a very cost effective way to get their desired point across. They only made a few pairs of lungs and the campaign was only allotted for the summer time, which can cut down on cost as well. It easily reached a mass audience and it resonated well with consumers as well. In closing, this was a great advertisement and is a great idea for other clients to use.