Hewlett Packard HYPE Gallery Project
AN ART GALLERY NOT A TV CAMPAIGN
Hewlett Packard asked us for an advertising campaign to introduce their latest generation of large format printers and digital film projectors to a younger more creative target audience.
Instead we persuaded them to open an art gallery in Brick Lane called HYPE. It would start off empty but we would invite our target audience to pop in, try out the HP technology and fill the space with their own digital images and films. We would even create an online version of the physical space that would allow artists from around the world to upload their work then have them projected onto the walls of the Brick Lane gallery.
The Gallery would only exist for four weeks, we would churn the content as often as possible and at the end of the exhibition everyone would be invited back to collect their large format printed artwork.
And we would do the whole thing for the same budget originally earmarked for the traditional campaign.
For HP it was an opportunity to really live up to their brand promise of "Invent" and forge a new collaborative relationship with a fresh generation of creative people. It physically delivered the truth and proof of the HP brand promise into the hands of a new audience.
HYPE was launched with an underground film festival in underground car park, clean graffiti, posters, postcards and print ads all created by young local artists. Fourteen young film-makers were invited to make any film they wanted to as long as there was an H and a P in the title.
There was even a radio campaign that invited local film-makers to pitch unmade scripts to radio listeners who could then vote to have their favourite one made.
In just 4 weeks, 1,200 artists turned up at the gallery and submitted their work.
9,000 people visited the physical space. The website attracted 4.5 million hits from 142 countries.
The HYPE Gallery Project became a benchmark in new advertising studies.
It won 34 awards around the world including two Cannes Gold Lions. It contributed to Hewlett Packard being voted European Marketing and Media Client of the Year in 2005.
The following year Chris was invited to sit on the very first Titanium Jury at Cannes as HYPE was recognised as the sort of big idea that the Titanium category was designed to celebrate.
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