A rare opportunity
The Fleming Initiative was offered a rare opportunity: A free ten-minute activation on the iconic Piccadilly Lights billboard.
Fleming’s mission is to raise global awareness of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and to save lives by encouraging sensible antibiotic use. They asked us for a concept built specifically for the fast-paced, attention poor environment of Piccadilly Circus.
The challenge was twofold: Catch attention in an environment that batters the senses, then hold it long enough to make people care.
The Fleming Initiative's website saw an 841% uplift in sessions and an 815% increase in unique visitors versus the previous period — a strong signal that people in Piccadilly Circus stopped, looked and went home to act.
Case Study Interview with the Client
Wheel in the Trojan horse
We opened with a stunt: ‘Breaking’ the iconic screen to catch attention. First, a fake ad (our ‘Trojan horse’) ran on the screen. After a few seconds, the screen itself appeared to break down, digitally degrading as if something had gone terribly wrong.
Out of the pixel static came our message, in bold, giant type: ‘The System Is Broken’.
The line was designed to work in three ways. It referenced the broken screen itself, a broken healthcare system that still sees inappropriate antibiotic use, and the wider sense people have that many political and societal systems feel broken too. We then linked it to the moment with a CCTV-style shot so the crowd saw themselves implicated.
