Fashion Brand Uses Guerrilla Projections To Drive Brand During NY Fashion Week

October 14, 2020 by Dave Haynes

One of the ways to get around the cost and time needed to get a large format display in place in a big city, or buy time on an ad board, is to do a version of guerrilla marketing on the streets, using projection.

That’s the path taken by high fashion brand Bottega Veneta as it looked to get some short-term buzz going during a very unusual, COVID-constrained New York Fashion Week.

Working with Pearl Media, the brand did a pop-up projection advertising program displayed at several locations around Manhattan. 

Says Pearl:

Over the course of one night during Fashion Week, Pearl Media projected three separate pieces of Bottega Veneta-produced video content at locations targeting fashion forward customers in Chelsea, Soho and the West Village. 

The videos were excerpts from a larger piece by photographer and filmmaker Tyrone Lebon, who frequently collaborates with the design house, and Bottega Veneta Creative Director Daniel Lee which showcased UK based actors, entertainers and musicians clad head to toe in clothes from the new Bottega Veneta: Men collection. 

For the pop-up advertising program short videos featuring Irish actor Barry Keoghan, Swedish singer-songwriter Neneh Cherry and French-British rapper Octavian were projected against blank walls at each location for several hours.

For the Bottega projection Pearl Media says it used large venue laser projectors, deploying three teams for the multi-location program.

“We typically ask the client to provide creative in both portrait and landscape format, so we have the flexibility to project against various building surfaces and sizes,” says  Jen Almeida, Chief Operating Officer at Pearl Media. “The Bottega Veneta projection was seamless. As soon as the sun went down the crews fired up the projectors, the content went up and people started whipping out their cell phones to capture the digital fashion moment and post to social media.”  

The thing I like about projection like this is the surprise element of media where you don’t expect it, and the minimal footprint it has. If you just need to do something for one night, or maybe a week, you find the right wall and location, roll up with a truck or van, and light it up.

I’m not sure whether this was guerrilla marketing, or based on expressed permissions from landlords. Probably the former. You know a landlord would love to rent his or her exterior wall space, but for a few hours one night, that’s not likely gonna happen.

https://vimeo.com/466236155

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