Lost diary finds new imbibers for Sumac Ridge
You’re waiting for a bus when you notice a book on the bench beside you. Picking it up, you realize it’s a diary, filled with the jottings of an Okanagan winemaker. The front page includes the man’s Twitter info, so you vow to get in touch. Two blocks away, someone else is reading a hand-drawn “lost diary” poster.
Orchestrated by Bos Toronto last fall, this guerrilla-style campaign for Sumac Ridge saw 5,000 hand-assembled diaries dropped in Vancouver, driving to Twitter and Facebook pages maintained by fictional winemaker David Wicken. Folks who found the diaries were offered a free bottle of wine as a reward.
For Sumac Ridge, the oldest operating estate winery in B.C., the campaign was an attempt to move beyond its current consumer base (which Bos co-CD Gary Watson describes as “a bit of a grandfather audience”) and attract wine drinkers aged 25 to 35.
“Any brand has this problem, and especially with wine: how do you grow your market without alienating your current base?” explains co-CD Chad Borlase. “Doing this sort of thing, the current base just never hears about it because they’re not involved in the Twitters of the world.”
The local campaign was covered nationally in the Globe & Mail and on CBC Radio. Although a few good Samaritans were irked when they found out the diary was a fake, Watson and Borlase say that, for the most part, the tech-savvy target audience found the campaign clever.
“And who doesn’t want a free bottle of wine?” quips Watson.
Canada’s most verbose vending machine
If a picture is worth a thousand words, what’s a picture of a single word worth?
As it turns out, quite a lot. Developed as a fundraiser for Quebec’s Fondation pour l’alphabetisation (Literacy Foundation), Bleublancrouge’s “Mots Depots” campaign saw a vending machine installed in downtown Montreal’s busy Place Ville Marie building. Insert $5 and take your pick of an assortment of prepackaged words – from “peace” to “spaceship.”
Gaëtan Namouric, Bleublancrouge’s chief creative officer, wanted to create a “really tactical, retail-based” campaign that offered donors something in return for their cash. Buying a word not only provided a tangible reward, but also reminded donors that literacy is valuable.
The vending machine campaign kicked off in December, but Bleublancrouge didn’t stop there. At Motsdepot.com, people were able to create digital word posters and pay for the privilege of updating their Facebook status. There were also radio spots and T-shirts, an iPhone app for sale, and a billboard proclaiming, “For Sale: Billboard. Buy a word for those who can’t read.”
Of course, the word on Namouric’s lips right now is probably “hooray!” The pro-bono campaign has been shortlisted by New York Festivals and Prix Média.
Jump to:
Cyber
Design
Direct
Film
Radio
Promo
Outdoor
Press
PR
Titanium
Integrated
Grand Prix For Good
