Not relying on any "new-fangled" marketing platform like mobile, email, digital, social media or even tried-and-true direct mail -- one brand, for the second straight year, has gone old school and taken it to the streets, literally.
The term "street smarts" has many differing definitions but I like this one for this context: "shrewd awareness of how to survive or succeed in any situation."
I like this definition because this particular brand has indeed shown, in my estimation, a shrewd awareness of how to succeed. That is if you consider success to come in the form of views, as in how many people viewed a particular video you posted to YouTube which personified your wantonness to take it to the streets.
Say a video like this one:
In case you missed this last year, TNT, as a way to announce the fact that their channel would be available in Belgium decided to...well, here's how they put it: "We placed a big red push button on an average Flemish square of an average Flemish town. A sign with the text 'Push to add drama' invited people to use the button. And then we waited..."
In less than one year, this video alone has over 43 million views, and is now the second most shared ad of all time.
Would you call that successful?
Again, depends how you define successful but to me, yeah, this is pretty darn successful.
Play It Again, Sam
Not about to rest on over 43 million laurels (and counting), TNT decided to take it to the streets again.
Now obviously time will tell if the sequel matches or even exceeds the original. I don't think it will, if for no other reason than that sequels never equal or surpass the original, save for perhaps The Godfather II.
But even if it doesn't live up to the lofty standards set down by its predecessor, it will still go down as a classic example of a brand that "gets it." They get the fact that in order to bring awareness to a heretofore unknown brand (which they were in Belgium), they needed to stand out, to be different, all the while engaging their customer and leave them wanting more. Not an easy task, I assure you.
So my hat goes off, again, to the folks at TNT and their collective agencies on a job well done.
What do you think of TNT's campaign? What would you do different? What other ways could they have announced their brand to the people of Belgium while still standing out and piquing curiosity?
Photo credit: Wikipedia