Visual Marketing: 99 Proven Ways for Small Businesses to Market with Images and Design

40. Making the Most of Your 15 Minutes of Fame: Using Posters and On-Site Displays Together with QR Codes and Social Media to Reach 24- to 45-Year-Olds

When the Andy Warhol exhibition came to the Anchorage Museum, Nerland Agency promoted the king of pop art on a shoestring budget. They created the Andy Warhol Factory Party to attract art patrons who usually disdain traditional marketing approaches.

Why It Works

The Nerland Agency consists of a couple of dozen employee-owners. Everyone who works there owns a piece of the agency. They joined with the local arts group, the International Gallery of Contemporary Art, to produce a Warhol Factory Party. They promoted it with large-format posters and pop art three-dimensional displays with bananas hanging on strings. The bananas were used in tribute to Warhol's Velvet Underground artwork. The eye-catching displays were hung at popular spots around town to build up publicity for the exhibition. The campaign used QR codes on all of the pieces. By scanning the codes with your smartphones, passersby could find out more party details and enter to win an original signed Warhol lithograph. The campaign was designed to reach 24- to 45-year-olds who are deeply immersed in mobile devices and social networking.

Success Factors

• The Warhol Factory Party event was sold out.
• The exhibition sold 13,000 tickets.
• NBC's Alaskan affiliate, KTUU-TV, featured ...