From Absolut Vodka to Dulux paint, marketers are looking for new ways to engage with citizens in public spaces

Beyond billboards: brands turn to the city itself as a new creative canvas

When the planners of an innovative underground park were seeking support from New York's city administration and needed to raise significant funds, they turned to a well-known vodka brand for support.

The arrangement allowed Absolut Vodka to become one of a growing number of companies using urban planning to promote their brands.

Billboard ads have long been a feature of urban environments. But many brands are starting to look at new ways to engage with citizens in public spaces, using the city itself as a creative canvas.

Citizens are turning to brands to support local projects

With cities around the world swelling and infrastructure under strain, citizens are taking it upon themselves to make improvements to their own urban environments, from guerilla gardens to installations and "hacks", in a movement known as "tactical urbanism".

But with public spending budgets squeezed, some urbanists are turning to brands to support their projects. With brands seeking more purpose in their marketing, tapping into this growing trend provides them with a way to do this. But will this new trend in marketing – that intersects experiential, purpose and content marketing – turn our cities into corporate-sponsored spaces?

Absolut, whose mission is to use the power of creativity to spark transformation, partnered with the Lowline – an urban project to build a solar-powered underground garden in a disused transport hub in downtown New York to rival the city's much-loved High Line attraction. The Lowline aims to open to the public in the next three to four years.

"One of the biggest challenges for the urbanist movement is that projects are expensive, but there is often lack of funding from the public sector. So working with a brand that has the funds and resource and expertise can help you get you there," says Dan Barasch, cofounder and executive director of the Lowline.

Expanding brands' role in urban spaces is not to everybody's taste. Street artist Bansky, for example, has famously shown his disdain for advertising in the public space through his artwork.

"You can't be seen to be intervening in public spaces in a crass or overly commercial way," says Afdhel Aziz, brand director, at Absolut.

Brands must tread carefully

He said that brands looking to experiment with the form of marketing must "tread carefully" and not approach it from an "egotistical" standpoint that is mostly concerned with logo size. "It is not just about where can I put my brand to score points in terms of brand recondition, but how to craft a delightful consumer experience so that people will voluntarily tell other people about it." says Aziz.

Having a clear brand mission that aligns with this type of campaign ensures that the activity is meaningful, rather than a gimmick. This has been the approach Dulux owner AzkoNobel Paints has taken with its ongoing Let's Colour global campaign.

The company, which says its mission is to "add colour to people's lives", donates paint for local communities and public bodies around the world to spruce up their surroundings. In Belgium, for example, it donated 15,000 litres of paint to give the city of Charleroi a colourful makeover, after it was named the ugliest city in the world four years ago.

"It was not about selling paint, but what paint can do and show what a bit of colour can do for the urban environment," says Daniëlle Van Hertum, marketing manager, consumer AkzoNobel Paints in Belgium.

Working with the city, it allocated six group leaders who carried out paint jobs on some of the former steel town's least popular buildings – a logistically huge operation, that over the years has seen 600 local people involved.

"One of the main challenges is finding the right balance commercially. It is not always easy because you have sales targets to meet and want this social activity to contribute to the brand," says Van Hertum.

The activity was documented through images and video. The brand also produces a print magazine, telling the stories of the people involved in the campaign and offering inspiration.

Creating content and leveraging it through social media gives marketers a way to measure the impact of this sort of work. However, in some cases this can lead to backlash, because it has the potential to appear self-serving and short-lived rather than benefiting the city in the long run.

Avoid "Facebook urbanism"

Jeroen Beekmans, founder of space-making agency Golfstromen and PopupCity, calls this trap "Facebook urbanism."

"It is urbanism for the internet, which is made so it will go viral and be blogged about." He explains that the urbanist activist tends to be cynical where brands are involved. "They feel like their topic is being colonised by brands and it affects what they do."

A high-profile case of brand urbanism that attracted this sort of criticism was Levi's To Work campaign. The idea was to leverage the community to rebuild the suffering Pennsylvanian town of Braddock, in America's rustbelt. One of the main criticisms was that while the campaign aimed to champion American manufacturing, Levi's products are actually made overseas.

Despite the fact that the ads featured local models, many people took umbrage with the sleek and expensive production, which included a series of mini-documentaries. Ad Age's commentator, Bob Garfield, described it as "too advertisingy" and not something that would wash with an audience sensitive to being manipulated.

Brands looking to explore this movement "shouldn't think solely about themselves and have to be willing to listen to the people," says Beekman. As brand urbanism starts to gain traction, marketers will have to be careful that their collaborations are beneficial to the citizens, local government and their brand, particularly in the age of greater transparency.

"If you want to be a cutting edge brand, it is not enough to just do cool stuff," says Aziz. "You need to think about the community you want to be a part of and how your actions are not only positive for the brand but for the consumer and community."

Sarah Shearman is a freelance journalist writing about the intersection of technology, innovation and culture.

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