SCULPTURE MILWAUKEE

Milwaukee is home to one of the largest exhibits of sculpture in the world. The Sculpture Milwaukee collection includes 35 pieces installed over five square miles in the heart of the city. But just because something is easily accessible and free doesn’t necessarily ensure engagement. Especially when those somethings are seen as odd, offbeat and sometimes just plain weird. The objective of this effort was to remind people that art is subjective and is meant to mean different things to different people.

As the campaign started coming to fruition, it became clear that the ads would be more intriguing if we left the images of the sculptures up to the reader’s imagination. Instead, we let people see the thought-provoking nature of Sculpture Milwaukee’s pieces through the eyes of Milwaukee’s most thought-provoking people. We then created elaborate photography sets to showcase each person’s personality. These fantastical worlds of objects, shapes and colors turned each ad into a piece of art, enticing Milwaukeeans to get out and see the art. In fact, our clever approach to not showing the sculptures generated more awareness, engagement and talk than any of the past sculpture-focused campaigns.

In advertising one of the world’s largest collections of outdoor public art, it just felt natural to advertise outdoors among the sculptures. Clever little prompts placed strategically throughout the city reminded people that they were literally just steps away from superb sculptural surprises. We even partnered with a local radio station to run a Pokemon Go-like game where people could get points for tracking down specific works of art.