July 19th, 2006

Filed under:
PR and Marketing, The Arts, Vancouver
13 Comments »

Evaluate My Guerrilla Marketing Idea: Ginch on a Bear

Spirit bearThough my activities as playwright are probably 95% done on my Fringe play, I will be attending some rehearsals and helping out with the play’s promotion (it is, after all, my day job).

Here’s a little guerrilla marketing idea I had, and I wanted to air it out for some feedback. First, some facts:

  • The play is concerned, in significant ways, with testicles and prominently features a jockstrap.
  • There’s an aggressive Lions Society of BC fundraising campaign featuring so-called ’spirit bear’ sculptures around Victoria and Vancouver. Artists paint them, businesses buy them and the money goes to charity (no money, ironically, goes to environmental causes that might help out the subject of the sculpture, but never mind). They’re all over the place. You can see a bunch of them in this Flickr photo set.
  • The Fringe Festival, as you may know, is a bootstrapped, grassroots, anything-goes kind of event.

Here’s the idea: we make 10 big bear jockstraps. A few days before the Fringe, we visit some high-traffic bears downtown and on Granville Island (where the Fringe takes place) early in the morning, and strap on the, uh, scrotal supports. We stuff the jockstraps full of postcards advertising the show.

What do you think? I’d imagine the jockstraps wouldn’t last on the bears for very long, but even a couple of days might distribute a big chunk of postcards. We could visit the bears daily, to refill the jocks and ensure the postcards weren’t making a big mess.

If we’re lucky, we might get a photo of the bear-with-jockstrap in one or more of the local papers.

What do you think? Any major pitfalls? Is the city going to sue our ass?

Comments: 13 Responses so far

Laura
July 19th, 2006
11:00 am

Possibly a good idea, but I would try to obtain permission before charging ahead…

One question: would the jockstrap slide off? The bears look like they’re made of slippery material!!

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Doyle
July 19th, 2006
11:17 am

Sounds like a great idea to me, the only problem, as stated by Laura would be permissions. I would assume you would have to get that from the individual businesses that purchased the bear. Not sure how the artist would feel about their works of art wearing “support”.

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Andrea Coutu
July 19th, 2006
12:12 pm

As clever as it sounds, I would be concerned about the fact that the Spirit Bears are a fundraiser for children’s causes. I think you should consider that point very carefully. An article in the Sun about how you “defaced” public art with jockstraps, marring the image of the Lions/Canuck House/chlidren’s charities/etc, and using it to promote your play about manparts is probably not the PR opp you would want. If it was a fundraiser for something else….that would be different.

Also, I would prefer not to need to explain to my child why the bears are now wearing underclothes. And I’m not even a prude.

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Dale
July 19th, 2006
3:59 pm

I’m sympatico with Andrea. Piggy-backing a fundraiser for a sympathic group doesn’t sound wise. Seeing the totally black Darth Bear in a white jock would be a sight to behold, though!

The jockstrap postcard holder would be eye catching, maybe an alternate venue?

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Nanuk
July 19th, 2006
4:58 pm

I think you’ll find there’s many a slip “‘twixt the “cup” and the lip”.

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jd
July 19th, 2006
6:59 pm

there was the same sort of fundraiser in winnipeg a few summers back. all the bears were placed along one of the main downtown roads. it was a big hit with families.

i can just imagine what would have happened had someone tried to mess with the bears: all the dads covering their young children’s eyes and all the moms swinging purses.

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Jessica Doyle
July 19th, 2006
8:24 pm

That is an excellent idea :) he he he And getting permission enh… that is over-rated. Just do it and see what happens. It’s no different than writing with chalk or spraying something with washable spraypaint. The strap can be removed. It could be funny to see people removing them and then get a photo of that and blurr out their face for a post. It is a great idea!

And a jock-strap he he… that is just too funny. Kids would laugh watching people go up and reaching into the bears underwear for a postcard! Hahahahah

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darren
July 19th, 2006
8:26 pm

Hmm…my sense is that everybody’s taking this a little too seriously. We’re not selling insurance–it’s the Fringe, which is pretty irreverent. You could even consider it some kind of public art mashup, if you were so inclined.

I’m also not sure I understand the offensive-to-children argument. Kids are consummately familiar with things like underwear, aren’t they? What’s the negative impact on children?

Keeping in mind, of course, that Donald Duck and that sponge dude wear pants, while all these bears are trotting around naked.

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James
July 19th, 2006
8:51 pm

I don’t think Donald Duck wears pants. Mickey wears hot pants though.

How about a less risky alternative of having people go around to any statue in the city and photograph it with a jockstrap. Then posting those photos online or in a collage at the theatre.

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darren
July 19th, 2006
9:54 pm

Sorry, that’s right, Donald wears a shirt and no pants.

A safer option may be to do it on permanent public art, as opposed to those silly bears. For example, the bull at Homer and Georgia, and so forth. Of course, that involves a lot of custom-made jockstraps.

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Andrea Coutu
July 19th, 2006
10:31 pm

The bears are a fundraiser for children’s charities and some of the bears feature children’s cartoon characters and the like. Jockstraps are underclothes. I really think you’re mixing things that the mainstream prefers not to see mixed together. The press may go to town with this and then you’re going to get the religious right protesting your play. Sure, it’s all good for getting your name out thee, but you just know someone’s going to dig up some unrelated blog post you made 3 years ago and quote that in the paper. And suddenly you look like a danger to society.

However, there are lots of non-children’s charity statues around town.

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RG
July 20th, 2006
5:45 am

If you want to stay with the jock strap idea, why not make a card board cut out and ring street lamps and such … not modifying some one else’s artistic expression … much less provocative to the mainstreamers, and may get the attention of the audience you really want to come to the Fringe.

On the other hand, why not sponsor a bear yourself if you’re so hot on this idea?

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-j.
July 20th, 2006
6:32 am

The play is concerned, in significant ways, with testicles and prominently features a jockstrap.

I’d have thought that the concept markets itself ;)

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