MARKETING MIX: Agency gets all animated over Hercules thefts

No home is complete without one: a six-foot high cardboard cut-out

Hercules. At least, that’s how it seems to the people at Buena Vista

Home Entertainment.

Improbable as it seems, hundreds of huge Hercules figures have gone

missing from poster sites all over the country.

The cut-outs were originally holding big placards announcing the Disney

video release but every single Hercules has gone ’mything’, leaving just

his placard behind. Which leaves it, frankly, one of the dullest posters

around.

After just three days, Buena Vista agency Banks Hoggins O’Shea replaced

them all, only to find they vanished immediately.

Even the Hercules in Tottenham, who was at the top of a nine-foot pole,

went the way of all flesh after a couple of hours.

And in one instance, the Hercules-replacer had not even got back to his

van before his handiwork was nicked.

We thought advertising was supposed to shift the product, not just

shift.

This article was first published on Marketing