Snowmen to show
the way to an ice hotel
Each winter a hotel of ice opens near to Quebec
By Toni Fitzgerald
Mar 2, 2010
With all the snow that has bombarded the East Coast this year, it's not too surprising to spy a pack of snowmen standing on the street corner.
And these snowmen would appear to fit right in. They're a short bunch, but they have a cheery demeanor. Most of them appear to be smiling, and they all sport the usual carrot nose.
But there's something odd about these snowmen: On their bellies someone has imposed a blue logo that looks like four concentrically placed U's.
If you have ever been to Quebec, you recognize this symbol immediately. It's the logo for Hotel de Glace, a hotel whose rooms are built entirely out of ice.
The snowmen are heralds to promote the annual grand opening of the 10-year-old hotel, which is rebuilt every year starting in December.
Here's how they came about.
The hotel wanted an alternative media campaign that would create buzz in the city about the grand opening and also generate press coverage.
It also wanted something eco-friendly. It asked its Quebec agency, anecdote marketing, to come up with ideas. After throwing out several, the agency came up with the snowmen.
"There is a lot of snow down here, and every winter, children build a lot of those snowmen," says anecdote alternative media director Simon Allard. "The Hotel de Glace needed messengers that looked like it, so here came the idea of frozen messengers."
All 40 snowmen were assembled ahead of time at the Hotel de Glace site, about 45 minutes outside of Quebec. The logos were painted on their bellies with acrylic paint.
On Jan. 12, anecdote had two trucks haul the snowmen into town, where they were placed in groups in the Nouvo St-Roch neighborhood.
"We chose this place because a lot of media have their offices there," Allard says. "We also put some of them in front of media offices in other area of the city."
The snowmen were on display over the four days leading up to the Hotel de Glace opening, from Jan. 12 to Jan 17.
The stunt worked because it was just plain fun. The snowmen were the perfect medium to advertise the Hotel de Glace because of its unique construction.
Plus, because the snowmen were adorned with only the hotel logo, and none of the pertinent grand opening information, they became a real curiosity for tourists. They snapped pictures and posted them online trying to figure out what the little men were advertising.
"We received a lot of good comments from the public," Allard says. "We also got some press coverage by local media and a lot of blogs around the world talked about the campaign."
|
|
|
