Last week, an unusual-looking inflatable object — a hodgepodge of houses, cannon stations and planets, with a frog-like face and a wagging tongue — was erected next to the Eiffel Tower in Paris, drawing curious visitors to crowd around for a closer look. Today, the inflatable has popped up in London’s Marble Arch. It is a giant replica of Howl’s Moving Castle, the Japanese fantasy film animated by Studio Ghibli, erected in partnership with Loewe for their third and final collaborative capsule.
“The message is one of uplifting connection. Crafting fantasies to create alternative realities and see the world in a different way,” Loewe creative director Jonathan Anderson describes in a statement.
Loewe is one of several luxury brands investing in large-scale spectacles that act as high-profile marketing stunts. In January, to celebrate its latest collaboration with Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, Louis Vuitton rolled out a host of global activations, including a pop-up at London’s renowned department store Harrods that includes a photobooth, claw machines and a mirrored space mimicking Kusama’s Infinity Rooms. By the entrance of Harrods is a 15-metre-high life-like statue of Kusama that appears to be painting the building in her signature polka dots.
Large-scale experiential marketing campaigns can help brands build an emotional connection with consumers, which ultimately increases customer retention. However, successfully executing a project of this size requires big budgets, and can be tricky to measure and scale. Minimising the environmental impact also remains a challenge and many brands have yet to apply their sustainability objectives across all touchpoints, including marketing, experts say.
Creating a scene
Loewe’s interpretation of Howl’s Moving Castle is a stone’s throw from luxury retailer Selfridges, where the LVMH-owned Spanish luxury label is staging a multi-dimensional experience that includes a pop-up in The Corner Shop; a takeover of the store’s cafe that French culinary studio Balbosté is turning into Calcifer’s Kitchen (the fire demon who cooks in the film); and cinema screenings of the movie. In Selfridges’s exhibition space, dubbed as The Cloud Room, visitors can discover the film’s background art by Studio Ghibli, go behind-the-scenes of the campaign and explore the making of Loewe’s Moving Castle bag.
