SMILE! YOU’RE ON HEWLETT-PACKARD’S CAMERA. Thousands of consumers are taking pictures of themselves simulated in a hot-air balloon race or wheeling down Route 66 perched atop a Harley Davidson motorcycle using HP technology.
The cameras are just one of a number of photography and entertainment products HP has made available for consumer tryouts during its 18-month mobile event. The You + HP Experience makes stops in 64 U.S. cities.
More than 25,000 consumers toured the first two exhibits, which began in March at the L.A. Dodgers spring training games in Vero Beach, FL. More than 8,000 people registered at the two events to get more information and offers. This month, the modular 4,000-to-8,000 square foot, semi-permanent exhibit plans a number of stops, including the Professional Businesswomen’s Conference in San Francisco, the Lilac Festival in Rochester, NY, and the Indianapolis 500.
Guests entering the exhibit receive Secure Digital photo memory cards after registering their name, address, e-mail, phone number and whether or not they would like to be contacted by HP for product update information and questionnaires. Visitors use the cards to tour eight pop-culture immersion stations to test out an array of cameras and digital photography tools.
“We wanted to create a Cirque du Soleil for HP,” says Chad Tons, president of Hollywood, CA-based Infinity Marketing Team, which handles the campaign.
Three HP-branded 53-foot trailers enter each city, with 12 permanent members and an additional 10 on-site to answer questions and take participants through the experience.
Visitors can photograph themselves as they interact with a variety of scenarios, print their images, play with Media Center PCs and laptops, use wireless devices, shop and communicate online, listen to celebrity and guest presenters and learn more about purchasing the HP products they’ve used.
An on-site store offers products — HP cameras, printers, ink, memory cards, PCs and photo frames — for sale and reps hand out HP-branded hats, tee-shirts and coupons.
Registrants are automatically entered into a sweepstakes. One winner is drawn each month, receiving various HP products featured throughout the tour. E-mail blasts to participants begin this month with new product updates and specials as well as surveys to query registrants about whether they bought HP products based on their experience with the tour.
HP has also launched a Web site, www.hp.com/go/you-plus-hp-experience, where consumers can go for a list of tour stops and photos. The Experience is part of a larger $300 million campaign that HP launched in October 2003.
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