LOWE HUNT CASTS PUNTER IN LEAD ROLE FOR STELLA ARTOIS
Stella Screen are screening the classic horror film The Shining in Brisbane’s Old Museum, refitted to look like the film’s hellish Outlook Hotel.
To create a genuine buzz around the event, Lowe Hunt Sydney creatives Ben Smith, Neil McGuirk and Tom Markham extended the experiential theme by recreating the ghostly bar scene from the film. For two nights only, they opened an exclusive bar – The Stella Artois Gold Room. The bar was a meticulous recreation of the film’s Gold Room, complete with eerie 1920s barman Lloyd.
Groups of passers by were invited into the depths of The Stella Artois Gold Room by pale strangers dressed in coat and tails. Guests then followed the sound of 1920s ballroom music anticipating the buzz of a crowded bar only to be confronted by the lone bartender, Lloyd, just as Jack Torrance was in The Shining. Actor Iain Gardiner (Lloyd) followed a script designed to inject the right amount of unease into guests.
The visitors were then directed to another room located down a dark corridor where they’d find other scary cues from the film. On entering room 237, another stranger would ask them to write their details in the guest register so they could be contacted by the Stella Artois Gold Room.
The Brisbane locals that didn’t run out screaming left the bar with a mysterious invitation and code to enter a website – stellagoldroom.com.
Using their code, they could access the guest register on the website and confirm their booking details. The ticket was then emailed to them.
The Stella Artois Gold Room achieved excellent word of mouth filling seats for the screening within days, says Tom Markham, Integrated Creative Director of Lowe Hunt: “This was much more than just an invitation to a free movie screening. We submerged them in an alternate reality. We made them think, spooked them out. We injected the screening with an exclusivity it would not otherwise have had. And best of all these guys started their night with a free Stella and a great story to tell.”
Client: Foster’s Australia.
Brand: Stella Artois Screen.
Agency: Lowe Hunt, Sydney
Integrated Creative Director: Tom Markham.
Creative Team: Ben Smith, Neil McGuirk and Tom Markham.
Account Service: Guy Lovell and Saul Betmead.
Senior Producer: Lisa Cordukes.
Photographer: Stephen Stewart.
Interactive CD: Jonathan Mo.
Interactive Designer: Han Lee.
Interactive Producer: Richard de Nys.
Set Builder: Bones Built.
Casting: Tom McSweeney from Maura Fay on the Gold Coast.
Foster’s Brand Manager: Kate McWilliam.
8 Comments
Sounds all a bit too complex to me, which means it will probably do very well at award shows. It’s also interesting to me that we are all becoming very focused on niche concepts. In my view, if five people ever really get to see something, then as creatives we haven’t really achieved our goal. If an idea has an inherently limited potential audience, that should count against it. Oh, I nearly forgot…it’s all about word-of-mouth and creating buzz. Sorry. It’s brilliant.
Like it guys. Nice work.
Great to see something different, good work guys.
Great to see something different, good work guys.
4:46 PM – I suppose they should have just sent the invitation to names on a mailing list, that would have been much more creative.
A really creative idea, and obviously very well received. Very well done Ben and Neil and all at Lowe Hunt.
These days everyone’s trying to do something weird and interesting. Ironically, the best way to stand out in this awards obsessed try-hard industry could be… do something dull and boring. That’s my tack anyway – anyone else with me?
It’s a beer company sponsoring a film screening. The idea gets filmgoers (not necessarily beer drinkers) to the beer in its natural environment. The two disparate threads of beer and film thus come together. Therefore it’s a good idea.