BOX OF CURIOSITIES

Short List
TitleBOX OF CURIOSITIES
BrandART CENTRE MELBOURNE
Product / ServiceTHE FAMOUS SPIEGELTENT
CategoryA06. Self Promotion
EntrantLEO BURNETT Melbourne, AUSTRALIA
Entrant Company:LEO BURNETT Melbourne, AUSTRALIA
Design/Advertising Agency:LEO BURNETT Melbourne, AUSTRALIA

Credits

Name Company Position
Jason Williams Leo Burnett Melbourne Executive Creative Director
Sarah Mcgregor Leo Burnett Melbourne Copywriter
Matt Portch Leo Burnett Melbourne Designer

Brief Explanation

Our challenge was to engage a disinterested target, who are bombarded with sponsorship requests on a regular basis. We had to give them a tantalizing taste of the kind of rich theatrical experience they’d be supporting. So we had to create a piece of theatre in its own right that was so intriguing, they’d find it hard to ignore.

The Brief

Every year, the Famous Spiegeltent, one of the world’s last surviving ‘European Mirror Tents’ comes to Melbourne. It plays host to an eclectic mix of entertainment from comedy to cabaret to circus. However, this yearly ‘season of curiosities’ cannot go ahead without the support of corporate sponsors. Our brief was to create a mailing that would grab their interest and give them a taste of the kind of rich theatrical experience they’d be supporting. We therefore had to create a piece of theatre in its own right that difficult-to-engage Blue Chip CEOs couldn’t resist engaging with.

How the final design was conceived

Our idea was to subvert the classic ‘corporate hamper’ and create a ‘box of curiosities’ that was a metaphor for the event itself: a collection of the strange, the unusual and the bizarre. We commissioned hand-made wooden boxes and filled them with a range of strange products, designed to look like they’d been sourced from the world’s most exotic emporiums. We made each one useable and the design rich and detailed, taking its cues from the era of freak shows and curiosity shoppes – an era that the Spiegeltent channels with most of it’s acts.

Indication of how successful the outcome was in the market

100% of respondents got in touch themselves via email (no pigeons sadly) or accepted a follow-up phone call to discuss sponsorship further. Within 1 week, the season’s major sponsor (Singapore Airlines) was secured and within a month, The Arts Centre had filled 100% of sponsorship for the coming season. Usually a process that takes at least 6 months of constant pestering was sorted out in record time, with potential sponsors coming to us instead of the other way around. The positive response will pave the way for The Arts Centre to contact the corporates they enlisted for future arts projects.