Avoiding Purple Gorillas: 5 Principles of Installation Advertising

Dimensional buzz builders.

Installation advertising.

Once limited to inflatable purple gorillas bouncing atop regional auto dealerships, it's now a medium that more and more clients are demanding. A way to make a big statement about your brand in an environment that is anything but corporate.

In the spirit of avoiding purple gorillas, a few guiding principles on what installation advertising 'should be' to discuss:

1. Integral to the space: Be a part of the space you're in. Interact with it. Make fun of it. Complement it. This isn't a mass market billboard, it has to make use of the space you're in. Like, for example, Saatchi's paper dolls peeing on trees in Central Park.
   
   
2. Relevant to the brand: To be effective, installation advertising has to deliver on your brand - not just be shocking for the sake of being shocking. Think, for example, giant Nike shoes taking off in rush hour traffic after a run-away soccer ball.


3. Personal to an individual: Sometimes scale is in the number of little touches. The unexpected treat that you couldn't believe happened until you talked to your girlfriend and she got one, too. And, suddenly it's all you can talk about ... the sheer weird, unexpected Thing. Despite news out this week that SunFlower Market isn't going to make it, they surely started out successfully with hundreds of potted sunflowers "lawnvertising" in the front yards of their surprised neighbors.


4. Fresh and unexpected: Probably goes without saying: It's usually best to be first. I'm not saying strap a bunch of gamers to a semi truck with duct tape to make your point, but...


5. Extendable to wider audiences: I should maybe say, "and sometimes 5." Sometimes the one-off, news-making installation does all the heavy-lifting for you. But, in an experience economy made egalitarian by technology, there's a lot to be said for biting the budget bullet and rolling the experience to where your customers are.

One recent set of installations that over delivered on all of these from BBDO New York and Havaianas:

From I Believe in Advertising:

(top) Limited-edition welcome mats were produced and distributed by BBDO New York as a unique way for people to store their Havaianas. When leaving for the day, people simply slid their feet in and stepped out of the mat. When returning home, the flip-flops were popped back in. Because Havaianas are impervious to bad weather, the mat can be kept either inside or outside. Keeping the mat inside further solidifies Havaianas’ connection to nature by essentially “welcoming” people to the outdoors when they leave for the day.

(bottom) In an effort to push Havaianas’ floral-print flip-flops, flower-bed installations were planted in locations where they were sold. They also served to remind people of Havaianas’ unique aesthetic of color, design, and the brand’s connection to nature and the outdoors.