Non-Traditional Media

Non-traditional advertising and media is ubiquitous in Berlin. Off of the web and onto the streets, non-traditional advertising is everywhere: up and down the stairs, on bikes, and sometimes, even on people. It’s extremely common to head out of the subway and see an ad for some cereal on the stairs as you walk up. One might think that it’s just brands that aren’t concerned about maintaining a “high-end” image, but brands like Oakley do it too. They had a single black-and-white image displayed on the flat, vertical side of the stairs (what do you call that?!).

Anyways, it was pretty cool, and from far away (and at the right angle) you could see the ad perfectly. Personally, I find this sort of advertising much more effective than a traditional poster on the station wall. Granted, the only “drawback” would be that the ad wouldn’t get noticed if there were many people going up and down the stairs, but c’mon: this ad on it’s own is far more engaging than a poster of anything else.

On the web, the ad agency AKQA, which just opened an office in Berlin this January, handled the launch of Volkswagen’s 2010 GTI. However, not a single print ad, online banner, or any other sort of media was used. Only an iPhone app was released by Volkswagen and AKQA. In the racing videogame, you could race a GTI and post your stats online and even post videos of your race, and also view your stats where you could see how you’d stack up against other players. You could also view the car and its specs in a showroom within the app. Though this move was risky, it paid off: this campaign was immensely successful and dramatically increased the sales of the car, many of which were directly attributed to the video game. The app was #1 in America, where it then gained popularity throughout the world.

Here's a great video on the whole story:

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=324848336756

Another ad agency with some non-traditional advertising was Wall AG and their ad bikes. Personally, I wasn’t too crazy about it. Personally I don’t pay too much attention to bikes, and if they were zooming past me I wouldn’t even notice the ad, much less be engaged with it. Also, if it’s a smaller, harder-to-recognize brand, I wouldn’t even bother with that kind of marketing. Maybe companies like Nike or McDonald’s would do well with that kind of marketing but not much else.