Compensating passersby for putting a little pause on their usual movement is the idea that articulates the new street marketing action of the Polish beer Lech, which has installed a kind of radar for pedestrians with the intention of deepening its positioning to enjoy the moment.
With “Chwilomat” or “Slow Down Cam”, designed by the VML Poland agency, the brand has tried to bring a moment of calm to one of the busiest and busiest points in Varsocia, the Centrum metro station and Pasaż Wisławy Szymborskiej square.
The installation consisted of a radar to measure the walking speed of citizens in real time. Anyone who went faster than 5 km/h has been given a “fine”, that is, an invitation to a nearby bar to pick up a Lech Free, the brand’s non-alcoholic beer, for free upon showing the “infraction”.
“With the first spring breeze, we decided to check how many people are in a hurry on the streets“, they have explained from the brand through LinkedIn. “The busiest people received a symbolic “ticket for a while”, that is, an invitation to catch their breath. We wanted to make it clear that this season it is better to reach the goal than to travel the distance in a hurry“.
Through social networks, the brand has shared the images of the participants in the interactive experience, as well as the speed detected by the radar for each of them, and a brief reflection on the reason for their haste. “Shopping. Why so fast? I don’t even know, I guess I subconsciously fear that they will buy everything right away, haha.”, says Oskar, who was traveling at 7.6 km/h. Dorota, for her part, was walking at 9.1 km/h, and pointed out that she had simply gone out to do some errands and that she had not realized she was going so fast.
The idea, as the brand points out, arises from research by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which indicates that our pace has accelerated by up to 15% in the last 40 years; while stops in public spaces have decreased by 14%.
“In a world that moves faster and faster, Lech has been constantly promoting ‘contagious moments’ for years.‘” commented Wojciech Bogus, Vice President of Marketing at Kompania Piwowarska, marketer of Lech and owned by the Asahi Europe group. “The daily rush has become the norm. We try to show it live – and stop it for a moment –, inspiring us to slow down and ‘catch the moments’”.
