Setting fire to a widely viewed billboard
We recently covered the Motorola X print ad that changes color with the tap of a finger, now, we turn your attention to billboard ads on fire, literally.
How would you advertise a steak? A picture, showing it looking yummy? Oh, how boring. In order to gain publicity for Double Grill and Bar, Russian Agency, RA Voskhod, created a billboard with the image of a giant uncooked steak.
People walked by the image daily, wondering what was going on with this huge piece of meat that displayed no name, no phone number, and no information. Then, after a few days, the meat was “grilled” by igniting wires with flame throwers, bringing forth flames. The rows of flames simulated the marks it would get from being on the grill, leaving behind the sear marks and the name of the restaurant.
A creative, interactive method
Advertising campaigns have become more and more interactive and creative. As we mentioned with the Motorola X ad, designing compelling interactive ads for the web is hardly a challenging experience any more, but engaging print readers, or in the case of billboards, viewers, requires a bit more creativity and thought.
Sure, Double Grill and Bar would have placed a scrumptious looking steak on a billboard with their information and made and impact, but it would not be anywhere close to the impact they achieved from torching the entire thing. Advertising still has an impact on people’s daily lives, whether it is online or in print and Double Grill and Bar did a wonderful job executing a billboard to draw people’s attention.
While this seems like an awful lot of work to advertise a restaurant, I am sure it is a marketing venture no one will soon forget and that is the point of advertising after all: make a lasting impression.
Jennifer Walpole is a Senior Staff Writer at The American Genius and holds a Master's degree in English from the University of Oklahoma. She is a science fiction fanatic and enjoys writing way more than she should. She dreams of being a screenwriter and seeing her work on the big screen in Hollywood one day.
