extreme advertising - helium friends
Extreme modern product design. The best Friend on Planet Earth.
We were commissioned to plan and develop a media campaign to launch one of the most demanding products ever designed. A piece of innovative climbing hardware – the Helium Friend.
Background:
Wild Country created the first Friend in 1977, a camming device designed for rock climbing. The Friend is designed for jamming and supporting tons of weight in outwardly flared upside down cracks - a technical solution that seems impossible. The company was built around the first Friend. Also known as cams, Friends have had a long history and have led the way since their launch way back in the long haired climbing hippie days of Yosemite Valley and their inventor, NASA scientist Ray Jardine.
Brief:
The brief was to ‘create a high impact central creative’, ‘a big punch is required’.
The advertisements were to appear in the UK, the USA and several other countries around the world.
The campaign will appear in online and offline media as advertising, promotional and exhibition material.
Technicalities:
The Helium Friend sell was across many features and criteria, a technical sell to a partially technically aware audience.
The climbing market is very specialist and differs in the US and the UK.
The solution:
1) To create a dark and sexy photograph that would sell the design excellence by highlighting the obvious quality of the engineering and teasing the rest of the design into darkness.
2) To create a series of headlines for multiple markets.
3) To create a series of succinct points and feature differences.
4) Tie this together in an original graphic design style that would grab attention in the relevant publications.
The outcome
Hugely successful product launch and sales.
