Phantom Blog

Wellington is continuing to be blessed by the sun this summer.

Things are heating up in the capital and this week Ahsin Ahsin was on fire at Glover Park.

As part of his exhibition at City Gallery, Ahsin took to the streets for a live art exhibition to showcase the upcoming works in Turbo Croc 2.0. We had the pleasure to experience first hand the power of hand painted advertising.

For activations like these, the experience plays an equal part to the finished piece, throughout the day crews of people from all walks of life came through and mingled, chatted and admired the work in progress. 

We caught up with Nicolette Esposito (Marketing powerhouse at CG) to chat activations and picking the right day for it:

How did the project with Ahsin Ahsin come about?

Ahsin’s work is bright, bold and lends itself to imagination, and so when our team first heard about his exhibition ideas were popping off.

We have been looking to do an activation beyond the Gallery walls, and with Ahsin’s background in street art this project just made sense.

What was the decision behind working with Phantom as part of this? 

We knew we wanted to take this project to the streets for all to enjoy. I have been working with our Phantom account manager, Madi for several years and she just makes everything so easy for us, so it was a no brainer!

What about your thoughts on the location?

Glover Park was the perfect location. It’s a bustling park just off vibrant Cuba Street and the site gave us ample room to make the project as big or small as we wanted. Being in a park, we didn’t have to navigate any tricky traffic issues, and it meant that all could come and watch the art unfold for as long as they liked.

For those of us unlucky enough to not be able to see it live (sad face), what was the vibe like on the day?

You never know what Wellington’s temperamental climate is going to do on the day yet we were lucky with one of those “You can’t beat Wellington on a good day” days. The sun was blazing, but we had a nice shady spot for Ahsin to paint. We had music pumping, drinks from Almighty to help cool us off, and a constant stream of friends, whānau and curious bystanders who shared the day with us.

Any similar or exciting projects coming up that we can look forward to?

This is the first time we have done an activation like this, and it has us hungry to do more. We always have something exciting planned for the Gallery, so you’ll just have to wait and see what’s next!

This is one of the sickest events we’ve seen in Wellington in recent years and we’re so stoked to be a part of it.

Yes yes, our marketing manager may have got to enjoy an Almighty beverage and sunbathe all day, but at least we got this video for all those who missed it.

All jokes aside, we’re here to push the boundaries of activation, hand-painted advertising and all things in between.

If you have an idea, we can elevate and execute it.

Get in touch.

Some of the most memorable marketing campaigns in recent times have also been amongst the most effective.

It’s all about making the most of outdoor media’s superpower – impact.

Because when you bring an idea to life in an high-profile location, you can bypass some common barriers to being noticed, build trust with consumers, and draw a direct line between communication and advertising effectiveness.

That’s our business model at Phantom Labs. More importantly, it’s the way brands around the world are driving sales.

Just ask the vampires.

Advertising effectiveness starts with enormous ideas.

In the UK, Kantar asked 750 consumers for their feedback on outdoor advertising campaigns. Some of the star performers were idea-driven campaigns from Ocean Labs.

For instance, Arla’s Lactofree milk brand was promoted with a gigantic milk carton protruding from the billboard. Milk-like liquid poured from the nozzle into a giant glass. It was a traffic-stopper, and so were the results.

The Arla ad made the top 5% of all ads for the communication of its lactose-free message. 37% of people interviewed said they would definitely tell others about the ad.

Encounter with a vampire.

In another Ocean Labs spectacular, the BBC launched its new Dracula series with two immersive billboards that used ingenious artwork created by evening shadows. (Vampires only emerge at night – geddit.)

Along with a spotlight and cleverly placed stakes, the installation included a glass box so you could break the glass “in the event of vampires.” With a time-lapse video that was viewed more than seven million times on social media, and over 40 articles in the press, this campaign brought Dracula (back) to life.

Closer to home, our Phantom Labs team have been busy on a bunch of high-impact installations

We helped Amazon Prime launch the new season of The Boys with a burnt-out car and lasers – and went viral worldwide. And we recently enabled Netsafe to waste scammers time, and Garage Project to showcase its zero-alcohol beer while building its brand in the under-served Christchurch market

That’s the ‘getting noticed’ part of the brief. But what about getting results?

Experiential means effective

There’s a growing body of evidence that meeting a brand through an experience can significantly improve customers’ perception of that brand.

One study summarises it beautifully:

“Marketers who have implemented experiential marketing in their mix report a 32% increase in event attendance, a 56% increase in leads, a 70% increase in click- through rates, and a threefold increase in opened emails. Forty-seven percent of brands therefore report an ROI for experiential activities between 3:1 and 5:1, with 29% of them above 10:1.”

As we’ve seen, a highly creative installation, such as the ones showcased above, can generate an emotional bond that feels real and exciting to minds exhausted by the constant bombardment of digital adlets. By delivering an experience, advertisers turn passive viewers into engaged customers.

You’re creating unique content for your brand, which you can then send further out into the world with social media and other digital tools. You can also give people the chance to sample your product.

It’s the difference between storytelling and story making.

Bringing it all together with Phantom.

The way we see it, marketers have the ability to create truly memorable experiences when they leverage outdoor media.

And here’s where our billstickers step up to the mark.

You need visibility – because there’s no point being highly creative if nobody gets to see your amazing idea. So Phantom gives you access to a network of sites seen by millions of eyeballs every week. From K Road to Dunedin, we’ll place your special build where it’s most likely to get noticed.

The second key ingredient is strategic nous. At Phantom, we don’t just put up posters – we help marketers connect with customers. Our account managers love putting together a strategy that maximises your impact by tailoring poster sites to your audience goals, and then delivering within your budget.

Last but not least, there’s the practical ability to pull off a special build. We’ll help you brainstorm and extend your ideas, and then bring in the artists and construction experts to deliver it without a glitch.

Your creative ideas. Our street-level smarts.

That’s how you deliver experiential advertising in 2024.

The lemonade stand has a long history dating back 130 years.

A symbol of entrepreneurship, and undoubtedly delicious refreshment on a hot summers day.

The idea instantly conjures feelings of warmth, excitement and refreshment and sums up the emotions that come with summer, call it a vibe.

When we think about posters, we can all pin-point a thought or feeling and are transported to a time in our minds.

For some, it may be a bedroom wall, rock gods, sporting legends and fashion icons cover bedroom walls the world over. When we take posters outside, the feeling doesn’t change, only the audience. They’re still communicating a message.

Powerful, thought provoking creativity is what sets apart the good from the great, and while posters have a power of their own, when combined with outside-the-box creative elements, magic can happen.

In a sea of visual stimuli, a creative poster stands out and grabs the attention of viewers.

Whether it’s through bold colours, striking imagery, or unique design elements, creativity ensures that the poster doesn’t blend into the background, but stands out on the street.

As consumers, we don’t want to be marketed to.

Times are changing, we want and need to feel a part of something.

We’re tired of being bombarded by cheap deals, discounted offers and skippable ads blowing up our digital feeds at every opportunity.

We want connection, authenticity, driven by creativity to deliver something engaging memorable and exciting.

Long White delivered.

Weigh the Eiffel Tower.

That’s how much paper our Auckland team recycled last year.

Phantom runs one of the country’s largest printing operations. Every week we fire up the presses to print enough posters to fill more than 6,500 frames. Then we do the same the following week, and the next one too.

It’s a helluva lot of paper when you add it up over the year.

How much, exactly? Well, last year we recycled 10,208 tonnes of paper and cardboard from our Auckland operations alone.

That’s roughly the same weight as the Eiffel Tower and equivalent to 95 adult blue whales.

Weighing up the impact.

Phantom’s partnership with Oji Fibre Solutions means all the posters from our northern operations are collected when campaigns are completed, along with the other waste paper from our business.

Oji Fibre Solutions then ensures the waste is reincarnated as new paper products.

Diverting this paper from landfill has multiple benefits. Not only does it reduce pressure on forests, but the planet is spared the climate-ruining methane produced as paper breaks down in landfills.

And of course, there’s less pressure to open new landfills in Aotearoa’s precious countryside.

While we currently only have recycling stats from our Auckland operations, we’re working on compiling the equivalent numbers from our Wellington and South Island teams. We’re pretty confident we’ll be adding a few more blue whales to the total.

Watch this space.

Committed to Carbon Zero and beyond.

Recycling paper is just one of the ways Phantom is delivering on its promise of sustainable outdoor advertising. We also use plant-based inks and submit all our operations to rigorous auditing.

In 2021 we first achieved net Carbon Zero certification from the extremely meticulous auditors at Toitū Envirocare. This audit process is being repeated in 2024, and we look forward to sharing the results with you

Keen to find out more about how we all work together to make outdoor advertising a better deal for the planet?

Get in touch.

The Takeover Winners: Part 2 – Auckland.

With the continuing rise of the digital age, one thing we can all agree on is that we are bombarded by potential scams, daily.

If your inbox is full, check your texts. Full there too? Ring ring, scam incoming…

Enter The Takeover winners: Part 2 – Auckland City.

Re:scam by Netsafe pitched us a detailed look at an insane campaign, utilising our super-sized street level frames, neons, and creative design that showcased their AI Chatbot communicating with multiple message headlines from genuine scammers.

Taking the form of multiple humanoids, the face of the AI chatbot sits centre stage with a clear and important message, ‘Keep Scammers Busy’.

Using neons to communicate the ever-present streams of messages that we have unfortunately become accustomed to receiving, Netsafe doubled down on the messaging behind the campaign, visually highlighting the sheer volume of noise entering our brains.

The clickbait headlines with spelling errors and all are far too familiar.

So, what does Re:scam do?

Simple.

When you get a scam email, forward it to me@rescam.org, and a bot sneakily disguises itself as a human and strings the scammer along on a realistic journey. How good.

High-impact location, insane idea, epic execution.

Re:scam has proudly wasted over 5 years of scammers’ time.