Category: Best Use of Experiential Marketing in a Promotional Campaign
Advertiser: ART GALLERY SOCIETY NSW
Product/Service: CORPORATE SPONSORSHIP
Agency: WUNDERMAN
National Executive Creative Director: Matt Batten (Wunderman)
Art Director: Amanda Glover (Wunderman)
Copywriter: Theodora Gerakiteys (Wunderman)
Account Manager: Katie Oslizlok (Wunderman)
Account Manager: Rebecca Masterson (Wunderman)
Producer: Paul Hayes (Wunderman)
Retoucher: Aaron Sutter (Wunderman)
Retoucher: Seamus Fagan (Wunderman)
Client Services Director: Eithne Mcswiney (Wunderman)
Media placement: Flat Mail - Direct Mail - 15 March 2012
Media placement: Experiential - Ambient Event - 16 April 2012
Describe the objective of the promotion.
The Art Gallery NSW, Australia’s premier art gallery since 1874, relies on donations and corporate sponsorships. The Art Gallery Society, responsible for acquiring corporate sponsors, wanted to leverage the Archibald Prize (Australia’s largest, most important portraiture competition since 1921) to recruit new sponsors for the gallery.
The audience was key decision-makers at Australia's top corporations. We had to get them to attend a corporate event at the gallery and to hear about corporate sponsorship.
The Society wanted a creative strategy to better their usual 5% response rate for leads, and 0.6% conversion rate for acquisitions.
Describe how the promotion developed from concept to implementation.
Usually, only celebrities and politicians have the honour of getting their portraits entered into the Archibald. We made our target audience feel special by giving them a similar honour.
We secretly sourced photos of our targets, digitally treated them to simulate different ‘paint ‘ techniques (Van Gogh, Münch, Durer, Rembrandt, Monet, etc), printed them onto canvas, stretched them over wooden frames, and then applied a clear gel over the surface to create the texture of brush strokes.
A direct mail piece invited them to collect their portrait.
Upon arrival, attendees discovered their own portrait on display in Australia's most prestigious gallery.
Explain why the method of promotion was most relevant to the product or service.
Corporations (and their decision-makers) like to think of art as a cultural component of their sponsorship portfolios, but rarely do they enact an annual sponsorship. By bringing the art experience to the decision-maker on a personal level, they suddenly understood the importance, relevance and emotional connection with art.
The finished pieces looked so genuine, even the art gallery staff thought they were real oil paintings. Our targets had an instant personal connection with the power of art and were immediately more receptive to the proposal of sponsoring the gallery.
Describe the success of the promotion with both client and consumer including some quantifiable results.
The direct mail piece had a 34% response rate (nearly 7 times the average).
Those who attended the event were delighted to see their personal portrait displayed in Australia’s most prestigious art gallery. This generated an acquisition rate of 14% (over 23 times the average).
The Society used the ‘portrait offer’ as an ongoing hook to attract further acquisitions, resulting in the largest increase in annual sponsorship in decades.