'All aboard,
and now off to the slopes'
A bus shelter in Vancouver is done up as a ski lift
By Toni Fitzgerald
Feb 26, 2010
There are hundreds of ski lifts in Vancouver, site of this year's
Winter Games, and this one looks like all the rest. It's suspended from
a silver poll snaking above. A worn bench hangs down below with a
sturdy wooden back. The lift looks ready to rise into the air to
deliver skiers to their destination.
Only it can't. It may look like a ski lift, but it isn't, and it isn't going anywhere.
It's really a cleverly redesigned bus shelter bench in downtown
Vancouver, miles away from where the events are taking place, part of
an alternative campaign playing off the Games.
To the left is a poster showing a wide expanse of snow and a lone skier
making his way down the mountain. Above are these words: "Try
vitaminwater. It makes the daily routine feel more like an Olympic
event."
The daily routine is waiting for the bus, and the idea is that when you
drink vitaminwater, the mundane task of waiting is suddenly as exciting
as riding up the slopes to take part in a Winter Games ski race.
Or that's the idea.
The idea of the chair-lift theme came about after vitaminwater reached
an agreement with the local transit authority to create an alternative
campaign that involved the entire structure.
Vitaminwater gave its agency just one instruction: Shock people's socks
off (without pushing the boundaries of good taste, of course).
A lot of ideas were kicked around.
"One idea was to create a training structure (complete with coaches)
for a new Olympic event: 'waiting for the bus,'" says Pat Pujolas,
creative director at vitaminwater's Cleveland-based agency, Brokaw.
"We also had skiers crashing through the glass, or landing atop the
shelter, with messages like 'don’t try ski jumping, unless you’re a
professional,' but ultimately our client chose the ski lift design. We
are happy with the choice."
To create the bus shelter ski lift, Brokaw first examined pictures of
real lifts and then sketched out a way to incorporate the chair into
the existing shelter.
To give the lift more of a realistic feel, the agency also placed a
pair of ski decals on the sidewalk below the bench. When you put your
feet down, it looks as though they have skis attached.
"Initially, we wanted to use actual skis bolted to the sidewalk (for
authenticity), but quickly realized the liability issues and so gladly
switched to no-slip decals," Pujolas said.
The chair lift is not the real thing, either, just a good facsimile.
"We did not want to hurt any real ski lift chairs in the production process," Pujolas jokes.
The bus shelter debuted Feb. 5, the first day of the Olympics, and will
be disassembled in late February or March. It's located on the corner
of Robson and Thurlow streets.
The stunt works on two levels. It makes a connection between the Winter
Games and vitaminwater, which has only been available in Canada for two
years. For a product like that, an Olympics-based stunt is a perfect
chance for broad exposure.
And it's an arresting visual image, so far out of the ordinary that
many people have been sitting on the bench, putting their feet on the
skis and getting their pictures taken.
"We just returned from Vancouver, where it was great to see the amount
of public interaction with the ski shelter," Pujolas says. "Kids
especially had fun posing and clowning for the camera. We anticipate
many uploads to Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, and other social networking
sites."
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