Runners have superimposed a giant poppy on the city of London, with help from Vodafone and its agency AKQA.
As a tribute of remembrance on the 100th anniversary of World War I, Vodafone invited joggers to fill out the middle of a Poppy-shaped outline on top of the capital city. In total, 635 runners downloaded a dedicated Vodafone running app and filled the streets with GPS signals.
A dedicated website with a map was continually updated with the progress of filling out the streets of London with red and black GPS signals. Running in the very center of London marked the streets in black and outside the center was marked in red. A timelapse of the campaign can be seen here:
From Oct. 29 until Nov. 9, the runners covered 7492 miles and created the world’s largest poppy across the city. Participants and their friends and families donated more than £15,000 ($23,5000) to veterans charity the Royal British Legion in support of the campaign.
The campaign was led by former Royal Marines Commando Ben McBean, who lost a leg on duty in Afghanistan. He undertook a 31 mile run around the city to mark an outline from which others would fill in the red and black of a poppy via GPS. Here, he explains why he did it:
Corporate acts of remembrance can be a risky business for brands. Things can quickly turn sour if a campaign is seen as a crass attempt to exploit the event. It’s a fact U.K. supermarket Sainsbury’s is painfully aware of: Its 2014 Christmas advertising campaign recreated a famous real-life scene from WWI. The Christmas Day Truces saw opposing troops put down their weapons and play soccer with one another in neutral territory. Some members of the public saw this as a distasteful marketing ploy. It received 240 complaints to the U.K.’s Advertising Standards Authority.
Vodafone will be pleased that its remembrance campaign is seen as tasteful. The campaign is one of a series of #Firsts documenting first-time experiences of inspirational individuals.
More in Marketing
At the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Mastercard joins a pack of consumer brands flocking to Formula One
For marketers looking to align their brands with F1’s expanded appeal to audiences, the Las Vegas Grand Prix is providing a slip road into the sport.
Why PepsiCo and EA are expanding their partnership into mobile: A Q&A with PepsiCo vp of global sports and entertainment partnerships Adam Warner
The planned, multi-year nature of PepsiCo’s integration into “EA Sports FC” reflects that both PepsiCo and Electronic Arts are playing the long game as they look to step up the presence of ads inside and beyond EA’s portfolio of sports titles.
Key takeaways from Digiday’s 2024 Gaming Advertising Forum
Now that gaming has gone from a buzzword to a regular presence in brands’ media mix, marketers are more closely scrutinizing the value and ROI of their investments in this channel — and the platforms are rising to the challenge. Here are some of the biggest takeaways from this week’s Gaming Advertising Forum.