PIE BAG

Short List
TitlePIE BAG
BrandAUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR THE MOVING IMAGE
Product / ServiceTIM BURTON EXHIBITION
CategoryA03. Company Literature
EntrantDDB GROUP MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA
Entrant Company:DDB GROUP MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA
DM/Advertising Agency:DDB GROUP MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA

Credits

Name Company Position
GRANT RUTHERFORD DDB GROUP MELBOURNE EXECUTIVE CREATIVE DIRECTOR
GLEN DICKSON DDB GROUP MELBOURNE GROUP CREATIVE DIRECTOR
RUBEN CIRUGEDA DDB GROUP MELBOURNE GROUP CREATIVE DIRECTOR
JAKE BARROW DDB GROUP MELBOURNE ART DIRECTOR
CRYSTAL FONG DDB GROUP MELBOURNE COPYWRITER
MATTHEW DICKINSON DDB GROUP MELBOURNE ACCOUNT MANAGER

The Brief

After huge success in New York, Tim Burton the Exhibition arrived in Melbourne. ACMI (Australian Centre for the Moving Image) had the exclusive. People knew of Burton’s films but not the artist behind them. Films like Batman, Alice in Wonderland and Sweeney Todd. A mainstream campaign followed from the New York show, but our objective was to get people to the exhibition in a fun and engaging way. Tim Burton himself had to approve of the concept. We needed a fresh, (very) inexpensive direct solution to get people through the turnstiles.

Creative Execution

To get the message out on a shoestring budget, we had to be creative. Capturing city workers on their lunch break and visitors to the CBD on the weekend via an interesting and unexpected channel proved an excellent solution. That the piece doubled up as the promotional mechanism to drag people to the ticket booth completed the loop.

Describe the creative solution to the brief/objective.

Our idea was to play on his film: Sweeney Todd, the demon Barber of Seville. It tells of a maniac barber who kills and bakes his customers in to delicious meat pies. Our own ‘100% Human Meat Pies’ were born. While not really made of human meat, our pies were sourced and sold through an Australian bakery chain called Pie Face (a franchise specializing in pies). We had our bespoke pie bags printed. When a customer bought a pie it was handed over in a special bag outlining the exhibition and offering a two-for-one ticket deal at the show.

Results

Tim Burton was served a ‘100% Human Meat Pie’ at the opening of his Melbourne exhibition and loved it. As did most of the other VIP guests. • Opening week visitor numbers swelled to 23,150, making it ACMI’s most successful opening week of all time • In one day alone more than 4227 people came through the doors, again setting a new attendance record (previous 3603). • In a 5-week period total visitor numbers were 109,000 (compared to the previous benchmark ACMI Pixar exhibition figure of 62,000). • Tim Burton the Exhibition has been the most successful in ACMI’s history.