Park&Co

Tailoring a Tempe sidewalk into the perfect marketing medium

When we took on the challenge of helping MADCAP Theaters promote an upcoming fashion show at their venue in downtown Tempe, we spent a lot of time thinking about the best way to get the word out. Flyers? Facebook? Tom Ford lookalikes?

We looked up and down Mill Avenue searching for the right medium. Then it occurred to us. We were standing on it.

That’s when things got interesting. We asked ourselves, what if we hijack a section of Mill Avenue for an evening and turn it into a catwalk? What if we funnel hundreds of late night revelers, students, misfits and tourists down this makeshift runway and see what happens? What if we position a gallery of glitzy fashionistas and paparazzi in an adjacent storefront and have them shower these unsuspecting models with applause and affection?

You’ll have to turn up your speakers and watch the video to see exactly what happened. But it’s safe to say MADCAP turned a lot of heads and made a lot of friends that night. And for us, the experience only reinforced what we already knew: in marketing, context is everything. Your message won’t work unless it's matched with the perfect medium. Sometimes that’s a thirty second commercial. Other times, it’s simply thirty feet of sidewalk.

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(Photo Credit: Flickr/nicogenin)