Driving Business Up The Wall

Big, bold and eye catching; these are just some of the types of characteristics people associate with PR and marketing stunts that project images onto famous buildings. They are a commonly used as a high impact marketing approach to promote a new campaign or to raise awareness of the brand itself. This PR stunt is designed to be an attention seeker saying ‘look at me’.

If we add the development of technology into the mix, PR stunts have risen to new heights in recent years offering more spectacular viewing, and none more so than on Landmark buildings; here are four of our most-recent favourite PR stunts:

4. London City Hall turned into a Rugby Ball

City Hall is usually renowned for being the home of cycle enthusiast and London Major, Boris Johnson, but  a couple of weeks ago, the 45 meter high London landmark was transformed into a gigantic rugby ball to mark 500 days until the start of the Rugby World Cup.

London City Hall Rugby Ball

We were just waiting for Johnny Wilkinson to arrive, put on a pair of boots and kick the rugby ball over London Bridge, now that would have been spectacular!

3. Morrisons get creative on the Angel of the North

Last week was a controversial period for Supermarket heavyweights, Morrisons, after the news broke out of their provocative PR stunt to project a giant baguette across the wings of the Angel of the North, with the words “I’m cheaper at Morrisons”.

Bread of the North

Perceived as ‘philistine and disgraceful’ the projected image received huge criticism from national newspaper The Guardian and also the general public on social networking site Twitter. The idea behind the stunt was in a bid to promote their new lost cost range but such activity evidently back fired forcing Morrisons to later apologise with a formal statement;

“We were trying something different which was meant to put a smile on people’s faces but clearly it wasn’t to everybody’s tastes. We’re so proud of our northern roots and the last thing we want to do is offend anybody.”

2. PlayStation turned the OXO tower into a controller

As part of the next-gen console marketing war that was furiously being played out at the end of last year between the PS4 and Xbox One, PlayStation took it upon themselves to adapt the infamous OXO tower sign into the iconic symbols of the PlayStation controller

PlayStation OXO Controls

O, X, Square and Triangle are among four of the most iconic shapes in gaming history; so to have the innovation and nous to take a core concept from the brand and adapt it to one of London’s buildings is very clever and w no doubt created a buzz around the PlayStation brand and release of their latest console. Credit must be due to the marketers at Playstation for pulling of this epic stunt.

 1. Possibly the greatest way to play an arcade game ever!

Continuing along the gaming theme we finish off with a similar stunt from Channel 5’s ‘The Gadget Show’ and their epic feat of becoming Guinness World Record holders for the largest architectural projection

Pacman

For the iconic show’s 250th episode presenters Jason Bradbury and Rachel Riley teamed up with Namco Bandai and developers RITH to create a bespoke version of gaming classic, Pacman. Using the Millennium Mills as backdrop they managed to perfectly project the arcade game onto the grid shaped building, with the final measurement scaling up to an enormous of 2,219 m2.

Although this is not a marketing stunt as such, it’s a piece of technological genius that we just couldn’t let slip by the wayside. Not only is it engaging to the eye, it’s also interactive with the gaming features and we only wish we could have had a go ourselves.

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