More on the Mini Billboard

So, in typical Monica fashion I saw something, thought it was cool, took a photo and posted. Did I do ANY research? No. Don't be silly.

So, talking with my Media Director about the billboard she pointed out that there is a whole campaign behind the Mini Soho billboard detailed on StopPress which you can read about here.

As a bit of an overview however, the gist of it is that this is a varied campaign to stir up some interest in the Mini Soho. There are only 15 Mini Soho's in the world, each individually numbered. What makes this even more interesting is that you can't test drive or buy one of these Mini's in a store, test drives are organised through an 0800 number and you can only buy these cars online. <-- If you click on that link then you can check out the website which is quite nice also.

I understand the idea of exclusivity that they are trying to build around these cars, but the expense of the media around it: the spectacular billboard, a window display at fashion boutique Black Box (which apparently also includes some promotion in conjunction with The Herald VIVA), bar coasters, urban digital projection and a 'daredevil' stunt; seems quite high considering the total potential earning from the actual cars. $49,595 x 15 = $743,925. I would take a punt and say they are spending maybe 10% of that on advertising. Curious.

At any rate, one of the parts of the campaign includes a pop up store in Ponsonby. I was a little confused as to what was going on when I walked past this last Wednesday and took photos of it. Of course, I didn't put 2 and 2 together when I saw the #1 billboard as I had had a few beers that night and forgot about the pics till I heard about the store.

It is possible that it is now complete and looks better, sorry about the dark shots, but it was late:

Pop-up store. Watch this space, I might go back and take some more pics depending on how good it looks completed.

Back on the billboard just quickly. They have tidied the bottom of it:

Much better.

And one of the gang at FCB found me on Twitter today to thank me for the interest in their billboard. That was nice of them. From what they told me they "worked with an outdoor company to secure this as a temporary site but it is owned by Atrium" (I guess hence no ownership tag - pity, if i were the outdoor company I would be pretty vocal about making this placement happen). They also mentioned that "this campaign isn't about sticking to outdoor timetables and old sites!"

Hate to say it, that last comment is a little too 'entering an award/one of the many reasons advertising has a bad name' language for my liking, but hey - good on them! At any rate, thanks to @jaredisle for the info.