Kill Bill Sprays A Little Attention

"Think outside the box". I must have heard this phrase a million times in my career. It's always used to push oneself or others to do something great and different that's never been seen before. For those of you which have had to go down this road you know how hard it is because we have a nasty habit of creating limitations on ourselves. We might say: The client won't do it; there's no money in the budget; I'm too busy; the client wants something simple! These limitations stop us from doing eye catching ideas. But there are times when everybody does their job right, the client is open and the stars align.


Above is a great example of out door that is "outside the box". It's an outdoor poster for the awesome flick KILL BILL that was placed near a busy Auckland intersection to promote a local channel's screening of the movie. As you can see, they went a step further and sprayed paint on the building, pavement, street and car. The added touch has to be the car and the empty spot where the blood wasn't able to spay on to the ground. That was a brilliant touch. As a creative solution it grabs your attention, describes the film simply and makes you want to know who did it. As you can see, the logo isn't big and it isn't placed on the left to insure that people will see it in 4 seconds. No they wanted buzz. This poster goes a step further and creates self promotion for the station and becomes a great talking piece.



I use to to work at Adams Outdoor Advertising here in Charlotte, NC. This type of approach is what we and agencies got really excited to do. While I was there, an agency in town, Boone Oakley wanted to create a stunt that involved a giant 3D muffin that had fallen on a car. The car was to be placed underneath the billboard a couple days after the billboard had been put up. The car had a for sale sign with a telephone number. Just like the KILL BILL above, it was also by an intersection and it incorporated the surroundings. It was also smart that anybody from the gas station nearby could walk up and checkout the car. So one night, the operations guys go out to the car and crushed it with a crane. They then placed the 3D muffin on top. As you can imagine the next day the phone rang like crazy.

I even heard a story where a friend of mine, Bailley, went out to see the billboard with the muffin on the car shortly after it had happened. He saw these two guys laughing their asses off at the giant muffin. So Bailley walked up to them and commented on how funny it was and then one of the guys said, "it's hilarious, my buddy here wanted to buy this car and he brought me out to take a look at it!"

In today's day and age billboards, like most advertising, have a very difficult time standing out. Now that we have a million or so TV channels to watch, and logos are plastered everywhere, it's tricky to do anything. So when I see examples like the Kill Bill, the first thought I always have is, "Why didn't I think of that" and the second is, "Damn they did a good job."