At the end of November I was presented with a pretty remarkable opportunity. At GoMobile, where I am currently an intern, our
ad campaign for Duvel Green, an exclusive Belgian beer releasing a new line of draft to select markets, started to go underway. I approached Ryan, our marketing director, if there was any way I could become more involved in the implementation of the campaign. After talking with
Sam, the AE in charge of the campaign, they came up with a proposition. What if me and the other intern were to fly to the three markets that the campaign was taking place in, New York City, Chicago, and San Francisco, and put up all of the posters for each of the featured bars? This would be taking place from November 30th through December 5th, which happens to be the week before “dead week,” the week before finals week, at the University of Washington. I was very leery to take almost an entire week off from school at the end of the quarter. It turned out that the other intern was not able to go, due to his school schedule, so I was left to bring one of my close college friends, Mats.
Before I knew it, we were both on a red eye flight to New York City Monday night. We got in with almost all of Tuesday to ourselves. I had spent a week in Manhattan the previous summer, so I felt relatively comfortable enough to show Mats around, who had never been to “The Big Apple.” We stayed right in Times Square at the Econolodge where for $150 per night, you get a 10’ x 10’ box, with optional room to breathe.
So first, naturally, we walked around Times Square and marveled at the hubbub and ridiculous displays.
Later, we met up with my godparents who happen to be New Yorkers for a quick lunch at the
Playwright. Afterwards we walked across by Rockefeller Plaza, watched the people ice-skating, and then headed up Fifth Avenue.Turns out that we had missed out on the Tree Lighting ceremony by about 5 hours. After stopping by the Apple store we took a stroll through the magnificent Central Park,
which I am still blown away by. It’s pretty incredible that such a park can exist within such a metropolis. I remember how back in the summer there would be pickup softball games being played while businessmen watched as they took their lunch breaks.
We then met up with Mats’ uncle who previously worked for Ogilvy & Mather, and currently works for
Charlie Company. He and I chatted ad careers and the direction of the industry, while he and Mats caught up on family and career business as well. After getting a cheap dinner at a pizzeria on the side of the street, we headed back to the hotel to prepare for our night.
Starting at about 9:00pm, we had 25 bars in New York to visit (two were in Brooklyn, the rest in Manhattan) and put up posters promoting the Duvel Green as the first wave of the campaign. These “wild postings” were to be put within a couple blocks of each bar on buildings that were easily visible by foot traffic and unlikely to be taken down.
Ideal buildings were well kept but vacant storefronts within a close vicinity of the bar. All in all, we visited 25 bars from 9pm to 6:30am, utilizing every mean of transportation- subway, bus, taxi and a lot of walking. A lot of walking. All down the mid- to lower Eastside and all the way up the Westside. Once we finished, we got about a four-hour nap before we had to get up and head to JFK for our flight to Chicago.
Now I had never been to Chicago and had always heard great things about the city, so I was pretty excited to go. As of now, I am hoping to spend my upcoming summer interning somewhere relatively far from Seattle. Chicago had been one of the places I was considering due to its industry opportunities and quality of life. The first thing we realized when we got it, was that it really was the Windy City. And it was cold. It had been cold in New York, but this was like night and day. On our way back from dinner that night, it started to snow, which I was partially excited for (I love the holiday season and everything that goes along with it) yet very unexcited due to us having to be out all night in the snow. We started our night putting posters up along the Magnificent Mile. Unfortunately once the snow stopped, rain took its place. Just our luck. Putting up posters in the rain and strong wind is a perfect recipe for disaster and frustration. Luckily we persevered and got all eleven locations complete. Due to how much they were spread out, we actually ended up taking taxis from location to location. We ended up finding a super cool cabbie after we posted by
Brasserie Jo, who took us to our next three or four locations. He was a sociable Ghanaian who really got into it with us, point out good locations and acting as our watchman for police and hecklers.
We went back and slept in until about ten in the morning. We could’ve slept in, but we had almost a whole day to experience a city we had never been to! Our flight to San Francisco didn’t take off until 9:00 that night.
First we walked from the North end of Lincoln Park, South down by the water and then on to the Magnificent Mile. Between Lincoln Park and where the Magnificent Mile starts, however, was a small neighborhood of houses that I was completely blown away by. They were so old, elegant and well kept. One was actually for sale so Mats, never one to be shy, called them up to inquire. We guessed upwards of millions, but unfortunately the agent wasn’t available.
We then did some window-shopping and came across a street team doing a sidewalk promotion outside of the Gap, for the Gap. It attracted a lot of passersby, including the attention of the police who had to ask them to make more room for pedestrians. It kind of reminded me of some of the stuff that GoMobile has done and continues to offer its clients, including Duvel. Our goal for our escapade was to find ourselves a local Chicago-style pizzeria. We stumbled upon
Pizzeria Uno, which was exactly what we were looking for.
A great pizza place/bar with local drafts on tap and the deepest pizza I had ever eaten. The pizza pan’s lip was at least two inches tall! And it sure was delicious. After gorging ourselves it was time to visit the previous night’s bars to get some daytime footage of the postings, including pictures and video. We actually had bought a
Flip Video recorder just for the trip, which proved to work quite well.
We then headed back to O’Hare for our flight to San Francisco, which got in at about 11:30pm. Good thing it didn’t get delayed since we were lucky enough to take the last BART Train up to where we were staying. The plan was to start posting immediately upon our arrival to our hotel. Now I had been to San Francisco multiple times, but I was still kind of unsure of any area besides Downtown/North Beach/Fisherman’s wharf (yes, all the touristy parts). We got off the BART at the 16th & Mission station, which, when traveled by foot at 12:30 am, can tend to be a pretty sketchy area. We hurried to our hotel, checked in, and hit the streets. Since we were starting so late in San Francisco, we would divide the 15 locations up between two nights, which was a relief.
The next day we decided we decided to visit one of the bars and do some investigating to see whether this niche, “beer connoisseur” market really exists. At
Toronado, we had a chat with the bartended who had worked there for the past 20 years of the bar’s 22 year existence.
He told us that the beer had been selling pretty well. He informed us that the bottled original Duvel was actually better, “more bubbly and higher alcohol percentage.” Then, a picture perfect coincidence occurred. Two young 25-30 year old women walked up and sat next to us at the bar. Without any hesitation, one requested “two Duvel Greens, please.” I couldn’t believe our luck. We start talking to them to see what they know about the product. She proceeds to inform me, “You know, it’s only sold at fifteen of the bars here in the city.” Who would have thought we would run into someone so well informed! I was so surprised. Upon leaving, we asked if we could keep one of the signature glasses, but unfortunately they only had four left due to “about five breaking every Friday night.”
After this little encounter, we decide to go downtown. We ended up taking a cable car, which I had wanted to do for quite some time. We walked around Union Square, down through Chinatown, and had lunch in Little Italy. Mats ordered pizza for the third time this trip; only this time, it was quite Italian. In fact, it even had a fried egg in the center of it, which made him somewhat unsure of how to go about eating it. After showing him Lombard street, (the world’s most curvy street) and Fisherman’s wharf, it was time to head back to the hotel to prepare for the night.
We finished that night successfully as well. And after another morning nap, we were off to the San Francisco Airport to head back to my beloved Seattle. Something that I had really noticed, however, was San Francisco’s homelessness. Being exposed to it my whole life, I am more than aware of Seattle’s problem, especially around Pioneer Square and other parts of downtown, and I thought we had it bad. But San Francisco made our homeless issue look trivial in comparison. I wondered why exactly this is. I know that San Fran has an incredibly diverse, eclectic history, as does Seattle, but taking New York City into comparison; you would think that NYC would have it much worse off. I am, however aware of New York City’s programs offered to those on the streets. My godparents once informed me that all the people who sweep, clean, etc. the streets of New York, were all once homeless, but are then almost forced to get these jobs to work for a place to stay. Homelessness just isn’t tolerated there- it’s the city’s mindset.
Anyways- I digress from time to time. Looking back, this trip was very successful for the campaign, which is still underway, and for myself as a student eager to travel. I had quite a bit of make up work to do upon my return, but I completed it all successfully. In fact, I just finished my last final exam this morning which brings me to where I am now: on a Boeing 737 on my way to New York City again, to help implement phase two of the Duvel Green campaign. Only this time we won’t be putting up posters throughout the entire night. Instead, we will be attending a few meetings and monitoring the street teams, flash mobs, and making sure we get good photo and video footage for ourselves and the client. Hopefully I’ll have some time to do some shopping because there’s 8 days until Christmas and I haven’t bought a single gift yet! I was surprised I was asked by GoMobile to come along for round two, but it certainly was a pleasant surprise- I am really beginning to see why New Yorkers love the city for what it really is, not just a tourist’s perspective. And yes, it’s true that I cannot get Jay-Z’s
Empire State of Mind out of my head.
Decades from now, I hope that Nike’s “Courage” commercial that will be remembered the way Volkswagen’s “Think Small,” Wendys’ “Where’s the beef?” and Apple’s “1984” commercials are thought of now. Though not as “breakthrough” in terms of edginess and novelty, it creates timeless universality among viewers.
The feelings evoked in this ad through competition and athleticism are not just found in sports- they are found in our every day lives. Dozens of images are shown in the ad. Scenes of power like Vasily Alexseyev, the “world’s strongest man,” is juxtaposed later by a scene of Derek Redmond, who tore his hamstring, unable to finish his race had it been for his father breaking through security to help him. Perhaps the most famous scenes of courage are those of Lance Armstrong during chemotherapy and later winning one of his seven Tour de Frances. You do not have to be an athlete for this to appeal to one’s sense of Pathos.
