Thought Leader: The Specsavers Van
Posted by
by Frank Wainwright. Photographs courtesy of SpaceandPeople
Specsavers’s playful marketing continues with the van stuck on rising bollard stunt, delivered by Specsavers Creative with Grand Visual and brand experience events business Ann Squared, in the castle area of Edinburgh and then extended to Liverpool One this Easter weekend.
This stunt really works – it plays the line of real vs stunt so nicely.
It forces a joke response that is already a British staple. Is there a better-known strapline for any brand currently? It is hard to think of one.
The stunt also plays on a few shareable tropes including ‘you can’t park here, mate’ and the online history of schadenfreude that makes sure that if a British person sees a lorry slewed sideways in the snow your first hope is that it might be delivering tyres with extra grip.
The stunt also plays out well if/when you guess it to be a stunt. That’s partly because it is a real OOH piece and not an AI piece.
The 100s of 1000s of views of the van image are delivered through real word of mouth, not seeded PR and not needing AI. Even the pickup by the World Bollard Association is a happy happenstance gift to the campaign, rather than a tease-led placement.
This is a neat stunt that is good enough to get people talking without press calls. Nobody sent me anything to get this mention. I tracked down the photos from SpaceandPeople, the agency who secured the location for the stunt in Edinburgh.
Also, no physical risks were taken, nobody had to be cajoled into unwitting participation, and by repurposing a van that was already written off, the environment impact was modest. I guess getting the van in situ without being observed was a challenge, but, unlike the bollard, clearly not insurmountable.
Here are some links:
