Canon Pixma unleashes Cliff Logan at Martin Place on a Segway
Canon has followed up this week’s launch of its new Pixma campaign featuring ‘home office evangelist’ Cliff Logan with a brand activation event in Martin’s Place. While the character patrolled the area on a Segway, a large poster ad was constructed on the pavement from sheets of paper printed from a Canon Pixma printer.
The campaign was devised by Leo Burnett Sydney, Hill & Knowlton, Mediacom, TMS Sydney, and Uber.
I’ve always questioned the point of activation campaigns and this reinforces my doubts of any effectiveness. When I seen the guy in Martin Place on the segway I just though it was an over paid tool going to work. Dressing up like a north shore ex- private school boy didn’t help either.
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5 Agencies. That.
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Wow. Well done industry, another piece of cutting edge integrated communication!! Why give this play time in Mumbrella?
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Wow, an outdoor ad printed in parts on the spot and laid out on the ground with a strange segway guy… I hope they didn’t pay too much for that.
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As already said, it took 5 agencies to come up with that – how many long lunches did that take at the clients expense?!
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Segway’s are illegal on the streets of Sydney….sorry Cliff!
Does anyone else think Norman Gunston when they look at Cliff?
@fraser, clever, engaging and relevant activation campaigns do work…just not this one….they could’ve tried to at least pay a ‘rent-a-crowd’ to stand around and look interested at least…there’s NOONE engaging at all in the final shots…..apart the strange dude in red…who looks like he’s wondering how much the segway and Cliff would sell for on the Indonesian black market….
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All you naysayers be damned, this is about to go viral – in a big way!
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thanks @channelsurfer I agree that activation campaigns could be engaging, relevant and clever however in most instances I have seen they seem to be a campaign /idea looking for a strategy. Working in Martin Place I see alot of very bad activation campaigns, last week was a real chestnut – a tupperware activation in Martin Place – talk about target audience disconnect.
As a client, activation campaigns seem to be the forgotten child and they are always rolled out at the end of a creative proposal presentation and I always get the impressison that its included to either try and use the last $50k of the budget or give a very bland campaign some edge. Most of the time I can tell the agency has given 10 mins thought to it and don’t believe in it. What I can’t get my head round is that there are clients who agree to these types of campaigns, when there is no strategy, relevance, integration or engagement in the campaigns.
Glad to be proved totally wrong and keen to hear examples that have been integrated/engaging/made an impact and provided positive ROI
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Run out of decent ideas? Activation in Martin Place.
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The parade of brand activations in Martin Place every day is becoming monotonous. The comment of a passer-by the other day just about summed it up for me. “A bunch of over paid pretentious wankers who believe harrassing people makes them buy stuff”. It’s not new….product demos have been done for years.
And now it takes 5 agencies to organise it. Canon must have money to burn.
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@fraser – i totally agree with you, activation campaigns are an after thought and used as badly as social media campaigns where the client/agency creates something ‘just because everyone else is doing it’ mentality…..i would give you examples but i can’t think of any Australian examples that spring to mind because 99% are just the same as the Canon example….a waste of time and money….
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