| Spikes Asia 2012 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Direct | Corporate Information | Bronze |
Type of Entry Direct: Product/Service
Category Corporate Information
Title BOX OF CURIOSITIES
Advertiser/Client ART CENTRE MELBOURNE
Product/Service THE FAMOUS SPIEGELTENT
Entrant Company: LEO BURNETT Melbourne, AUSTRALIA
DM/Advertising Agency: LEO BURNETT Melbourne, AUSTRALIA
Name Company Position
Jason Williams Leo Burnett Melbourne Executive Creative Director
Sarah Mcgregor Leo Burnett Melbourne Copywriter
Matt Portch Leo Burnett Melbourne Designer
Describe the brief from the client:
Every year, the Famous Spiegeltent, one of the world’s last surviving ‘European Mirror Tents’ comes to Melbourne. It plays host to an eclectic mix of entertainment from comedy to cabaret to circus. However, this yearly ‘season of curiosities’ cannot go ahead without the support of corporate sponsors. Our brief was to create a mailing that would grab their interest and give them a taste of the kind of rich theatrical experience they’d be supporting. We therefore had to create a piece of theatre in its own right that difficult-to-engage Blue Chip CEOs couldn’t resist engaging with.
Creative Execution:
The Spiegeltent is not your average night’s entertainment, and so to communicate this effectively, our idea couldn’t be your average mailer. The designs of the objects took their inspiration from the era of freak shows and emporiums of curiosity – an era that the Spiegeltent still channels with its interiors of Victorian carvings and opulent velvet and most of its performances. We knew that our target probably received countless invitations to sponsor various shows and events – we needed to show how unique and different our event was in the most imagination-capturing way possible.
Describe the creative solution to the brief/objective.
We took the classic ‘corporate hamper’ and subverted it, creating a ‘box of curiosities’ that would pique the target’s interest and become a metaphor for the event itself: a collection of the strange, the unusual and the bizarre. To encourage interaction and engagement with the contents, we made the products useable and the design rich and detailed, so they looked like genuine artifacts from a mysterious emporium. Finally we arranged the items into the box in sequence, so that the recipient would look through each in turn, before landing on the response mechanism.
Describe the results in as much detail as possible.
100% of respondents got in touch themselves via email (no pigeons sadly) or accepted a follow-up phone call to discuss sponsorship further. Within 1 week, the season’s major sponsor (Singapore Airlines) was secured and within a month, The Arts Centre had filled 100% of sponsorship for the coming season. Usually a process that takes at least 6 months of constant pestering was sorted out in record time, with potential sponsors coming to us instead of the other way around. The positive response will pave the way for The Arts Centre to contact the corporates they enlisted for future arts projects.