Handvertising

Background

Millions of bacteria and viruses are transmitted from hand to hand every day – when you shake hands with someone for instance. Just how quick and inconspicuously that can happen was demonstrated to around 80,000 spectators at the Hamburg Marathon, using, for the first time ever, their own bodies. 

Idea

Spectacular guerrilla promotion: at the Hamburg Marathon, Grabarz & Partner made use of an unusual tool to publicise the ‘Antivirus’ disinfectant: people’s hands.

Six marathon runners were equipped with special mobile stamps and ink pads that had been developed specially for the promotion. They were affixed to the runners so as to enable them to apply ink to the pad easily while running. The runners were then dispatched into the marathon. As always, they were cheered on along the route by spectators, thousands of whom stretched their hands out into the air for high-fives. Anyone who came into contact with the equipped runners this way got a surprise afterwards when they discovered advertisements for the ‘Antivirus’ disinfectant on their palms. Stamped there in big letters: “That’s exactly how nasty germs spread – ANTISEPTICA home”. It was a spectacular and direct placement of the product benefit amid the jungle of other advertising at the big event. The public responded with enthusiastic astonishment, making the promotion a much-talked-about theme away from the running track. The “Handvertising” promotion was accompanied at the same time by promotional teams who handed out samples of the disinfectant to spectators, who were then able to try out ‘Antivirus’ on the spot, wiping away germs – and the stamp – quickly and effortlessly. Their recollection of the promotion itself, however, was much more lasting.