Ocean Spray was told, “no sampling allowed” at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. That put a major crimp in its plan to bring a 20-by-80 foot replica of a natural cranberry bog to the Big Apple this month; the distribution platform for hundreds of cranberry juice samples.
Refusing to be “bogged down,” the company mobilized its Bog Squad. Operating from a 1940s red Ford truck emblazoned with the brands logo and tag line, “straight from the bog,” the team stopped in high-traffic locations throughout the city and passed out samples, including its new Diet Ocean Spray.
“Each location has its own set of hurdles,” says Ocean Spray spokesperson Sharon Newcomb.
Whether they are marketing events with fixed venues or guerilla campaigns that work the streets of a major city like New York, live brand experiences can prove very successful, delivering plenty of positive exposure for a product and a nice lift in sales. However, the myriad rules and regulations governing street campaigns can vary widely from one jurisdiction to the next, and consequently create plenty of logistical headaches for event producers.
Cops have handcuffed street team representatives — branded attire and all — and carted them away in the back of a police car for not “moving on.” Reps have stood by in horror as city tow trucks hauled away branded rigs that violated local ordinances. Health officials have shut down food sampling. Those kinds of disasters — all unfolding before the eyes of untold numbers of consumers — can put a quick chill over the enormous success that can come with getting a marketing message in front of hundreds, if not, thousands of potential customers in a single day — not to mention rankle the client.
“The challenge is making sure you’re not creating any kind of problems, like traffic jams where people are spilling out onto the street because you’re taking over the street corner,” says Robert Gonzalez, general manager at Alternative and Innovative Marketing, Escondido, CA. “They’ll shut you down quick.”
City reps say they want guerilla and event campaigns to be successful and are more than willing to work with agencies to get it right — up to a limit.
“Often times a company wants to do something crazy, extraordinary or odd, like pulling a Lear Jet down Michigan Avenue,” says Cindy Gatziolis, a spokesperson for the Chicago Mayor’s Office of Special Events. “That’s going to be difficult for the people who live, work and visit here. Anything that would damage or hurt city property is a matter of concern.”
Permit costs to legitimately conduct events can run anywhere from $5 to $150 a day and require four to six weeks to work through the system. Additional costs for equipment, street closures, security, sanitation personnel, traffic management and overtime can drive the costs up as high as $250,000, Gatziolis says.
“You can’t just go in there Monday morning for a Tuesday event,” Gonzalez says.
And even when marketers think they have their checklists completed, they can be surprised.
Renegade Marketing Group in New York City was conducting an event for IBM in Washington Square Park when the parks department arrived to let them know they had forgotten to pay a usage fee.
“We had to pay up,” says Drew Neisser, CEO of Renegade Marketing Group. “The key is always to be prepared for those possibilities.”
LeadDog Marketing Group worked through many agencies and offices before it obtained permission to set up branded hotdog carts last month in high-traffic areas all around New York City to dish out 50,000 free Sabrett hot dogs. The campaign was aimed at driving tune-in for Madison Square Garden’s new 10-week documentary series, The 50 Greatest Moments at Madison Square Garden, which premiered Oct. 31. And serving food can add a whole new layer of complexities in dealing with cities.
“It can be very tricky, and part of it depends on whether it is prepackaged or whether you’re making it there,” says Dan Mannix, president and CEO, LeadDog Marketing Group, New York City.
He says prepackaged foods require distribution permits, where freshly made foods, like the Sabrett hot dogs, require health and food permits. Sabrett is the official hot dog of Madison Square Garden and it had donated the hot dogs for the event.
Hot dog “vendors” also handed out commemorative tickets that drove recipients to MSG50.com for a chance to win tickets for a year to Madison Square Garden events or instant-win prizes.
Meanwhile, once Ocean Spray sorted out its sampling issues in New York — that event runs Nov. 1 through 3 — it ran into another hurdle when readying the same event in Chicago, scheduled for Nov. 7 through 9 at the Chicago Tribune Plaza. Weight restrictions prevent trucks from driving onto the plaza, so all of the equipment — from live cranberry plants to a replica of a farm house — have to be carried or hand-wheeled in, adding time and labor costs. For Ocean Spray — the event then moves on to Los Angeles Nov. 14 through 16 — the backdrop of huge skyscrapers and busy streets against the countrified setting of a cranberry bog provides the startling contrast Ocean Spray hopes will stop passersby in their tracks.
“A lot of people aren’t familiar with what a bog looks like, so to have this natural landscape smack in the middle of a big city is something that people are totally in awe of,” Newcomb says.
When planning an event, standard practice should include picking six or seven nearby alternate locations (within a couple of blocks or miles) should problems arise with the initial location, such as low foot traffic.
“In a big city you have options to move,” says Jeff Symon, president of Alternative and Innovative Marketing.
With all the red tape, and high costs, some marketers have come to view large municipalities as goliaths that aren’t too guerilla marketing friendly, prompting some agencies to risk sending teams into the street without a permit.
“There are people who are just doing it,” Symon says. “You can show up and go guerilla, but you don’t want to be in a position where you have to call the client and say one of our members was arrested. The event is supposed to be positive, to create buzz and entice consumers to change their behavior. The last thing you want to do is to be in a position to create an adverse affect for the brand.”
Scheduling an event, only to find out once underway that another — or several other — major events are going on around the city, like a marathon, has also tripped up agencies.
“You’ve got to be smart when looking at the calendar,” LeadDog’s Mannix says. “You don’t want to compete with other big events or promotions or happenings in the city.”
— Andrew Scott contributed to this report
Guerilla media grabs
Big cities offer marketers a huge perk, beyond sizable live audiences, which agencies have begun to capitalize on: major media outlets.
“More and more, whether for a brand launch or the launch of a new TV show, doing a guerilla program that can capture awareness that goes nationally can be the ultimate goal of a promotion,” says Dan Mannix, president and CEO, LeadDog Marketing Group, New York City.
Last month, LeadDog took over every corner in New York City’s Times Square and closed a section of the street in a breast-cancer awareness campaign for Rado Watches, a Swatch brand, which had developed pink watches for the effort. An electronic billboard, set up behind a platform, tied to a Web site that continually scrolled the names posted at the site of cancer survivors and those who lost the battle to the disease. For each name added to the Web site, Rado made a donation to the Susan B. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. LeadDog also tapped other major brands in Times Square — Toys R Us, MTV, Prudential, Cingular — which turned their LED displays over to the Rado effort for one hour that morning. The agency pitched big and small media outlets alike to cover the event and caught the attention of Good Morning America. The morning show sent its star weather reporter, Sam Champion, whose interviews with breast cancer survivors aired in two six-minute segments.
Within hours of the coverage the number of names posted at the site soared to 7,000 from 450. Street teams handed out pink hats and T-shirts and cards that said “Time to Fight, Time to Make a Difference.” Messaging on the card drove people to Rado.com to enter names through Oct. 31.
“New York City is the media capital of the world,” Mannix says. “If you can do a promotion that gets national media coverage, you have just found a very cost efficient way to reach people across the nation.”
— Patricia Odell
If You Want to Sleep the Night Before…
A checklist for big-city guerilla marketing
Turning brand reps loose on the streets of Chicago, or any big city, can be a scary proposition if you don’t have your act buttoned up. Cindy Gatziolis, a spokesperson for the Mayor’s Office of Special Events for Chicago, offered a few tips for marketing agencies launching events in big cities:
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Leave plenty of lead time prior to the start of the event — no less than 60-90 days and optimally more
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Make sure your team is familiar with the city
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Work with local governing agencies; use city Web sites to gain a working knowledge of what government departments might be most helpful
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Learn the permitting guidelines and regulations that pertain to events and street marketing within a city
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Be prepared to work with local businesses, chambers and elected officials to achieve your goal
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Be aware of the city’s event calendar — are you looking at a date in which the city hosts a major marathon, parade or other civic event?
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Look for tie-in opportunities — for example, Chicago produces Taste of Chicago, a 10-day festival that draws an estimated 3 million people to the lakefront.
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Be flexible
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Be realistic
Network
