How Mr. Glasses guerrilla marketed IT with less than $10,000
The streets of Sydney were filled with red balloons tied to drains last week to promote the upcoming horror movie, IT. Mumbrella's Abigail Dawson speaks to Chris Campbell, managing director of the agency behind the campaign, to discover how an idea with less than $10,000 behind it made headlines across the country.
Last week saw the lead up to the new horror movie IT, which made a whopping $7.467 million at the box office this weekend.
Experiential agency Mr. Glasses, which opened its Sydney office in April, was given a tight brief from the client: the campaign couldn’t explicitly feature the film’s protagonist, Pennywise the clown.
The agency behind the guerrilla marketing tactics describes the brief as “challenging”.
“We were asked to come up with concepts and ideas on how we can promote the film in Australia and there was obviously a bit of a catch,” Chris Campbell says.
With a budget of less than $10,000, the five-month-old agency accomplished its aims while managing to stick to strict instructions not to directly feature Pennywise the clown anywhere in its advertising approach.
“[It] was challenging of course, but we didn’t have a massive budget to work with so we put our thinking caps on and started thinking about what was really iconic in the film,” Campbell tells Mumbrella.
“The balloons are very accessible and it’s also very iconic, it is something that allows people to automatically put two and two together.
“Once we knew the limitations of the brief we started looking at their full aspects of the film and the balloon was definitely one we gravitated to.”
The movie follows a gang of local kids who begin disappearing one by one, leaving bodily remains behind.
During the movie, the kids are united by their strange encounters with an evil clown and red balloons.
Campbell says while the agency had the idea about the balloons before receiving the brief, other marketing ideas were explored.
“The balloons tied to the drain was just really a no-brainer, once we knew we wanted to use the balloons it was like ‘What else can we do with them? Where can we put them?’
The agency had a couple of other ideas with the balloons, including attaching balloons to drones and flying them around a food court.
“You would be able to control the balloon while everyone is eating so it flies around above their heads,” he says.
In a separate part of the campaign, the experiential agency also used six different street artists to paint murals based on their loose interpretations of Pennywise the clown.
Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney each had two murals.
For street advertising to work, according to Campbell, it must be both shareable and emotional: “You want people to have an emotional feel because once you have that emotional connection then the marketing has worked and people will remember it.
“There is a lot of scope for doing stuff in the street, it is all about getting people to engage in something, and once they engage in it then they have some ownership in it.”
The balloons were the agency’s biggest and only expense for the campaign, costing less than $10,000.
Offering advice to other agencies and brands working to small budgets, Campbell jokes: “Give me a call”.
Answering more seriously, he says other people’s opinions will be key.
“Speak to people from different backgrounds, we have a little bit of a focus group and no ideas are bad ideas and then you can go away and marinate those ideas and come back with something better.
“It is just about creating that focus group and letting the ideas be the champion.”
Campbell says the response has been “99% positive” because no one else thought of the idea and the campaign had a clean-up policy.
There were no official policies and procedures the agency had to follow in regards to the clean up, but Campbell says the agency gave itself “a mandate to ensure [it] did things correctly”.
“We spoke with an environmentalist to make sure the balloons were recovered a couple of hours after they were placed and all the string as well.
“We then recycled them afterwards so there was no backlash,” Campbell notes.
“We didn’t just go and tie them to drains. [Mr Glasses and Village Roadshow] made sure there was a protocol of a clean-up policy and then a reporting policy to make sure we reported back to the client everything that we did.”
On the overall success of the campaign, Campbell says it was a team effort.
“I can’t take all the credit, Village Roadshow deserves a huge congratulations and we wish more clients were like them I want to personally tip my hat to Stacie Beckma and Maria Kaladze. These women had a vision and trusted us with IT.”
Find out how Australia’s top entertainment brand marketers are connecting with new audiences in innovative ways at the Mumbrella Entertainment Marketing Summit on November 30. See the program so far and buy tickets here.
Great campaign, and very good work.
But was this article written by the agency themselves, instead of by a journalist? There’s an apostrophe missing from a quote, and the grammar is a bit off.
User ID not verified.
“The balloons were the agency’s biggest and only expense for the campaign, costing less than $10,000”.
I gather the street artists were not paid and provided their own paint ? Six murals, three states.
Stencils for street messaging need to be created, staff and transport to install and breakdown/dispose of environmentally all need to be paid for.
This is a great, highly engaging campaign – just feel that that costs v investment are not fully accounted for or communicated – and can potentially create unrealistic expectations for clients.
User ID not verified.
How were the balloons the agency’s biggest and only expense for the campaign if they also contracted six different street artists to paint
six sizable murals?
User ID not verified.
Hi Ben,
Apologies for the confusion here. I have tidied up the wording in the article so this is more clear.
The artists were paid, but this was a separate part of the campaign. The element we are focusing on – the guerilla street marketing with the balloons, which generated all the headlines and social media chatter – cost less than $10,000.
Apologies this wasn’t clear in the first instance.
Thanks,
Vivienne – Mumbrella
Hi Liza,
I can confirm this article was not written by the agency, but I do apologies for any clunky grammar.
I have tidied this up so hopefully it is a smoother read now.
Thanks,
Vivienne – Mumbrella
Hi John,
Apologies for the confusion here. I have tidied up the wording in the article so this is more clear.
The artists were paid, but this was a separate part of the campaign. The element we are focusing on – the guerilla street marketing with the balloons, which generated all the headlines and social media chatter – cost less than $10,000.
Apologies this wasn’t clear in the first instance.
Thanks,
Vivienne – Mumbrella
Still need an apostrophe here: “…its also very iconic.”
User ID not verified.
If the agency were given “strict instructions not to directly feature Pennywise the clown anywhere in its advertising approach” how do they explain the murals featuring Pennywise? – “In a separate part of the campaign, the experiential agency also used six different street artists to paint murals based on their loose interpretations of Pennywise the clown.”
User ID not verified.
Hi Liza,
You’re absolutely right and it’s now fixed.
Mea culpa,
Paul Wallbank
News editor
Nothing like drawing young kids to play in and around drains…
User ID not verified.
Not sure how innovative the idea was if you’ve read the book and watched the movie – it’s a no-brainer to feature the balloons given the restrictions.
User ID not verified.
Bit of a clunky article there mumbrella. Agree with Ben Re: cost. The article gives the impression the whole campaign budget was 10k… Client budget expectations are already cooked beyond belief.
User ID not verified.
Who thought of it first? Just saying … http://ew.com/movies/2017/09/0.....nsylvania/
User ID not verified.
This is just a really great campaign. Murals did it for me, but balloons smart too. Reckon that $10k might have stretched to the odd chopper bike too. Or a cheap $100 speaker or two frreaking out pedestrians. “They all float down here…”
User ID not verified.
Jesus wept. One of the most innovative media campaigns of the year and people are picking holes on apostrophes and the costs of street artists.
As an industry we need to celebrate others success not focus on such negative pedantics.
User ID not verified.
They’d better watch out for someone even scarier than that clown. When those balloons get away, Clover Moore’s Enviro-Army of anti-fun police will come after them issuing fines. All of their permits thunder the words: “Balloons are not permitted!” Apparently it’s $400 fine per balloon. Don’t mess with Kim Jong-Moore!
User ID not verified.
feel like if i walked past it i’d assume it was a campaign for Red Balloon.
User ID not verified.
That confused me as well.
User ID not verified.
Ah, good ‘ole 2007.
User ID not verified.
I trust the people behind this campaign don’t like turtles and other marine life?
Balloons almost always end up in our oceans. Once again the earth is paying just so someone can make a buck. Good on them.
http://www.onegreenplanet.org/.....-wildlife/
User ID not verified.
Did you not read the story?
“We spoke with an environmentalist to make sure the balloons were recovered a couple of hours after they were placed and all the string as well.
“We then recycled them afterwards so there was no backlash,” Campbell notes.
User ID not verified.
Removable balloons and murals good, spray painting public footpaths, bad. Footpaths are public space and need to be protected from advertisers, lest all walls and floors be commercialised.
User ID not verified.
I do not understand how an environmental solves this problem and makes sure they’re all recovered.
But I do like that you have so much faith in humanity. I would expect many would have been set upon by those passing by and ultimately released.
Let’s not get started on the fact that helium is a very rare commodity and crucial for health services. Because then we would be highlighting how irresponsible this campaign was.
User ID not verified.
You know advertisers have been doing this for over a decade? As long as its chalk paint, councils don’t care.
What is with the comments on this article? I’ve never seen people so desperate to pick something apart and find flaws.
User ID not verified.
I think ‘one of the most innovative’ is a bit of a stretch. Cute, maybe.
User ID not verified.
How does one recycle rubber baloons and string? I’m stumped.
User ID not verified.