Trident Layers Taps Improv Everywhere for Grocery Store Musical
You might have experienced Improv Everywhere. They’re the people that orchestrate improvisational scenes in public spaces that usually garner a great deal of attention. Since creating Improv Everywhere in the summer of 2001, over 85 missions have been completed, and thousands of “undercover agents” have participated.
My favorites include, but are not limited to, Invisible Dogs, No Pants, No Shirts, and Human Mirror. Most of their pranks and shenanigans revolve around the NYC area, but they’ve been known to host simultaneous pranks in other cities (see the MP3 Experiment).
Now, a brand has taken advantage of their prankster expertise. Trident Layers sponsored an Improv Everywhere event, and gave Improv Everywhere creative control. There was no product placement during the actual event, but Trident Layers was touted at the end of the video that captured the prank, including links to their Twitter and Facebook pages.
What did Improv Everywhere come up with? Something called Grocery Store Musical. They had 6 actors show up at a grocery store somewhere in Queens. And these actors all pretended to be shoppers, when suddenly, one bursts into song, another joins in, and then another and another, until they’re all singing about squishing their fruit together. At the end, they don’t tell anyone in the store about Trident Layers, they just sort of walk away.
And I haven’t gone to the Trident Layers website because I saw the video, although I will probably keep my eye peeled for the gum next time I’m in the store. That might be because I already knew who had sponsored the event prior to seeing the video, but what about those who had no idea who was sponsoring?
It was effective in getting people’s attention in-store, and Improv Everywhere probably has really strong feelings about “selling out” and shilling for a brand, it could have been even more effective if someone had rolled in with a cart of Trident Layers and started giving it away post-song. Now THAT, would’ve been squishing ideas together.
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allimooney
