What’s set to be the biggest event of 2016? The Rio Olympics, the Queen’s 90th birthday, the US election? It’s impossible to predict. One event that’s likely to eclipse many in the UK this year has already happened: the Drummond Puddle.
For those who didn’t catch it, the six-foot Drummond Puddle blocked a popular pathway in Newcastle. Fascinated by the ingenious ways people sought to cross it, Richard Rippon started streaming it on Periscope.
In that moment, Rippon turned the mundane into an event of national interest. As well as crashing Periscope, it made the front page of the Guardian online, was extensively covered by the BBC and trended on Twitter’s new Moments feature. Drummond Puddle water has even been bottled for sale on eBay.
Here are five things your can learn from the puddle to factor into your 2016/17 campaign planning:
- Don’t ignore the local human interest story in your brand, even if at first it seems mundane. Today’s socially-voracious consumers are far more interested in brands they can build personal affinity with, over ones they can’t.
- Local events can be big news. In the inexorable trend towards globally homogenised brands, what can be forgotten is that retaining local relevance is often critical to local market success.
- British people really are different.
- In this increasingly digital age, real life experiences matter. The key is thinking how to make any live experience genuinely share-worthy, so everyone can feel like they were part of it.
- Finally, try and help people feel that they’re part of history in the making.
Tim Bourne is CEO at Exposure
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