By Malay Desai
From:South Africa, created by TBWA/Hunt Lascaris
To promote an upcoming jazz festival, the ‘Pigeon Square’ at Johannesburg saw an ensemble of jazz instruments being set up. Then, some birdseed and popcorn were scattered all over the instruments with no one manning them, only cameras watching.
Soon enough, the pigeons, later dubbed as a band, ‘Featherweights’, began to ‘make’ music while pecking, scratching and hopping all over the set-up. The resulting sounds along with reactions of passers-by were later compiled in a TV ad.
Why we Like
An open air, free-for-all performance at a prominent city square’, sounds good as a promotion for an upcoming jazz festival. It indeed turned out to be, at Johannesburg, and ended up making news and creating smiles too, as the said performance was by pigeons. Sounds implausible, right?
The essence of an urban cultural festival is to appeal to the selected few who know more about music, films etc. than the rest. However, with most festivals being number games for footfalls, they must promote themselves to many more than the discerning few to make more locals head to a given venue at a given time. Outdoor publicity assumes prime importance and when the fest in question relates to jazz, a genre not many understand and would want to shell out moolah for, it is a challenge.
We like how the agency, along with one of the performing bands, took the plunge and opted for the untoward idea. It was after all a low-risk, low-investment one, and the chances of the intended ‘performers’ not turning up on gig day were close to nil! On the other hand, the chances of onlookers getting incredulous were high and like the cameras captured, there was much music, curiosity and pigeon business at the site.
The approach is almost like that of an art installation, and is on dot, considering jazz itself is nothing less than some incredible art. In fact, in 2010, a French artist had created a similar installation on the way to a gallery in London, by putting up electric guitars atop on little towers and getting sparrows to make some fancy, scratchy music. We guess this is an inspiration from it, if not a nod to it.
Our only problem is that unlike most outdoor advertising campaigns worthy of mention, this one did not have any banner or visual ads that informed witnesses of the jazz festival. The pigeon jazz was an amusing sight alright, but seemed like just another street installation without any reference. Unless of course, the point of the activity was simply to shoot the happiness and turn into a TVC.
Outdoor campaigns in India are only gaining some respect now, but are confined to conventional spaces or the overdone flashmobs. With the choas and colours on our streets, surely ideas such as these shouldn’t be tough to come by.
