• by March 30, 2005

Paul Woolmington

When I introduced this column last month, I promised that one of the criteria would be a relatively high personal jealously factor. When you read this month's column, you'll understand why. You might also imagine yourself hearing the team at Nike, a company known for its fair share of groundbreaking work, chafing, "Why the hell didn't we think of that?"

To understand why, I'd like to transport you to Japan. Precisely 12 stories above two of the nation's business street corners, athletes dangled for about a month early last year. They dangled before throngs of awestruck pedestrians, motorists and some of the world's biggest news media outlets as they played what could only be described as vertical, high-rise soccer. And the best part of it is that onlookers stopped for 10-, 20-, or even 30-minutes at a time to look at an ad for Adidas.

Adidas in Japan quite literally elevated the notion of an outdoor advertisement. Buying just two billboards  one in Shibuya, which is like the Times Square of Tokyo, and the other in Yokohama, the second largest city in Japan  the signs were painted green, equipped with two goal posts, and transformed into mini soccer pitches. Tethered by bungee cords in front of it were a soccer ball and two soccer players who performed like acrobats, playing a game that combined athletics, gymnastics, and ballet. It was more like Cirque du Soleil than a soccer match.

We've all seen examples where people have tried to bring a billboard to life, but this scene literally came alive and stopped traffic. And it was such an unusual execution that it was picked up by the media at large  worldwide. While it only ran in two cities in Japan, it had a halo effect that launched the soccer campaign around the world. In some ways it became irrelevant that it was in Japan. It was a great idea that defied geography in much the same way it defied gravity. It celebrated the extreme, and transformed advertising into a form of entertainment.

What does this teach us? It teaches us that reaching the consumer is about depth and duration of connection and communication. We need to find new metrics to evaluate what you get when you create outdoor media that has this fusion of content and contact.

I often hear the criticism, "Well, four people doing something on a street corner doesn't make a media plan." I'd have to agree with that if it was just four people standing on a street corner. But there's a difference between four people standing on a street corner and four people suspended in the air, being used as a pivot to spark media interest worldwide.

The story was distributed through the Associated Press newswire globally. It spawned numerous public relations efforts; major news organizations throughout the world covered it. If I saw it as a consumer here in the United States, then this was clearly more than two poster sites in Japan. This effort signifies the power of a great media idea. And rightly so, has deserved all the accolades it garnered worldwide.

Paul Woolmington is president-CEO, founder, and chief chef of The Media Kitchen. (pwoolmington@mediakitchen.tv)