Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Playground "Hatch an egg"

Playground is an outdoor equipment store chain in Stockholm. Their brief was to inform people that Playground has the warmest down jackets on the market and to drive traffic to the stores. They created an adventurous experiment on the matter of life and death: Is it possible to hatch an egg in a down jacket? A fertilized egg needs a constant temperature of 100°F and a relative humidity of 60%. The egg was kept in a sport-bra inside a down jacket and a thermo- and humidity meter controlled the conditions. One human being, also known as "the hen", hatched the egg in a temporary "chicken farm" built outside one of the stores. On the website playgoundstores.com people followed "the hen's" effort to keep the egg in a healthy condition. Due to a small media budget they needed to come up with an idea that engaged people and encouraged them to interact with the advertising. PR was a vital part in the campaign in order to get people's attention and to push people to the store. The campaign received a lot of attention and PR in all sort of channels (National TV, Newspapers, blogs etc). Many blogs gave the campaign attention and people started to bet on the experiment, whether or not it was possible to successfully hatch an egg in a down jacket. New costumers discovered the store and the sale of down jackets increased by almost 500%. Now everyone knows that Playground's down jackets are warm enough to save lives. Gold & Bronze Promo Lions Winner.

Agency: Akestam Holst Stockholm, Sweden.