By Justin Lee, theWHIR.com
May 19, 2005 — (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Travis Hayes goes about his mundane daily routine like any other Londoner. He wakes up every morning, brushes his teeth, showers, gets dressed, enjoys a warm cup of coffee while scanning the front page of the Times, then leaves his flat to go to work.
Although instead of donning a suit and tie, Hayes is casually dressed. His employers state just one dress code stipulation: that he display a temporary tattoo of Web hosting provider C I Host (cihost.com) across his forehead.
This past January, the 25-year-old postgraduate economics student auctioned off his forehead for advertising space on eBay. Fascinated by the growing emergence of human billboard advertising in the United States, Hayes and fellow filmmaker Ben Sharp set out to explore this strange guerrilla marketing trend in a feature documentary.
In early February, C I Host and its CEO Christopher Faulkner made a winning bid of £5,100, providing Hayes’ with an investor for his unusual sociology project, and C I Host with a human billboard.
C I Host is no stranger to guerrilla-marketing strategies; in 2003, Faulkner first came up with the idea of the human billboard, commissioning Chicago’s Jim Nelson $7,000 to permanently tattoo the back of his shaved head with a five inch square C I Host logo. The eccentric marketing gimmick generated publicity worldwide through newspaper, magazine and television coverage.
“[With] guerrilla marketing, it’s not so much the customers you get and the recognition you get from the physical campaign,” says Faulkner. “But you [do] get a lot of customers and exposure from the press.”
In the case of Hayes, the payoff was twofold: C I Host would successfully promote its upcoming London data center launch in September (Hayes gave a brief introduction about C I Host to any inquiring passers by), as well as documenting the innovative marketing campaign through Hayes’ and Sharp’s film.
In the 30 days beginning April 19, the two chronicled Hayes’ experiences for their upcoming documentary, A Word From My Sponsor, as well as in Hayes’ daily blog (awordfrommysponsor.com). The two plan to submit the documentary to some of the world’s most prestigious film festivals, including Cannes, this September.
Hayes soon realized that the project would require him to surrender a certain part of his own identity. No longer just another anonymous soul wandering the streets of London, Hayes would have to become what Faulkner calls “a walking, talking billboard.”
“You do lose a piece of your identity because for the past 30 days I have been C I Host,” says Hayes, just three days from completing his duties. “On the other hand, I wonder if – come Thursday – when I wrap up the actual 30 days, if there will be a piece of me that’s missing.”
And while Hayes has received his fair share of stares, snickers and wisecracks, he asserts that the marketing tactic, although fairly ridiculous, actually works.
“Is [the human billboard] dumb in an overall sense? Well, probably so,” says Hayes. “Is it dumb but effective? Well, I think it’s definitely effective right now.
“But it’s exciting and it’s fun and it cuts through the clutter of how far we’ll take advertising and corporate branding,” he continues. “I think a lot of people think it is crossing the line.”
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