Aussie travellers have been left doing a double take with a clever new billboard popping up in airports across the country.
Travellers arriving at Sydney Airport are greeted with a large billboard proclaiming “Welcome to Melbourne,” while those in Melbourne are faced with a “Welcome to Sydney” sign. Outside Brisbane Airport, travellers can catch a glimpse of a “Welcome to Darwin” sign, and over in Perth, a “Welcome to Adelaide” sign is proudly displayed.
The hilarious campaign is not a poorly organised placement or a tech glitch but instead the latest in a line of impressively simple and highly impactful Specsavers campaigns.
Fans have shared the billboards widely on social media, saying they are “obsessed” with the “genius” idea.
On LinkedIn, Zara Seidler, co-founder at The Daily Aus, called the ad in Melbourne “bloody excellent,” saying that a number of confused travellers were stopping to look at the sign for a bit too long.
Other users called the campaign a “golden example” of how “committing to a creative idea for longer leads to more effective advertising, a stronger brand and more in-market very large business effects”.
The billboards are part of a broader Specsavers campaign, which includes a man in a Hawaiian shirt rushing through the airport to make a flight. When he thinks he has finally made it to board the plane, he runs up a set of stairs, but the aircraft has already left.
“Specsavers have managed to achieve that rare feat of creating their own distinctive brand of humour. Their work has a comedy voice of its own, so my role was to get the best out of the script and maximise the laughs. And telling a story purely with images – along with humour and wit – was right up my runway,” said Declan Lowney, the campaigns director.
“We wanted to do something different with this spot – up the jeopardy, up the scale, and increase the gags. It’s a fun spot that we’re sure will resonate with all sorts of people. Declan and the team worked really hard together to bring the script to life so successfully,” said Richard James, creative director at Specsavers, The Agency.
This is not the first time that the optometry brand has gone viral for its clever advertising techniques.
Earlier this year, the brand broke the internet when it parked one of its vans on a rising bollard in Edinburgh right next to a sign warning about the danger of parking in the area in a clever experiential out-of-home stunt.
