To promote Sony’s NWZ-W270 MP3 waterproof walkman, DraftFCB Auckland packaged it inside bottles full of water. The bottles were then put in special vending machines at pools and gyms across New Zealand.
The packaging innovation gave Sony a unique way to display their product and instantly demonstrate its benefits to the target audience.
You are on the beach, your battery is dying, and the solution is sitting inside a magazine. NIVEA Sun and Draftfcb Brazil built a print ad insert with real solar panels and a USB port, so beachgoers could plug in and charge while staying in the sun.
The mechanism is the message. The ad is not “about” a product benefit. It behaves like one. Put it in sunlight, connect your phone, and it becomes a small piece of beach kit.
In consumer brand marketing, the most memorable activations turn a media placement into a useful object that fits a real moment of need.
Everything in the context ties together cleanly. Sun. Beach. Sunscreen. Mobile phone. Solar charger. The usefulness makes the brand feel present without asking for attention, because the attention arrives naturally once the ad starts solving a problem.
This is a simple but important shift. The ad is no longer a container for persuasion. It is a container for utility. That makes the experience inherently shareable, because the story people retell is not “I saw an ad”. It is “I charged my phone with a magazine”.
Beach time is long, bright, and social. It also creates a predictable friction point. Phones run out of battery, and leaving the spot to find power breaks the day. A solar-powered insert fits the environment and the behaviour, so the concept feels obvious in hindsight.
It is a magazine ad insert created for NIVEA Sun in Brazil that includes thin solar panels and a USB port, allowing readers to charge a phone using sunlight.
Because the viewer has to use it. The interaction is physical and immediate. Place it in sun, connect a cable, and the ad performs a function rather than only communicating a claim.
The utility is inseparable from the product context. Sunscreen is used in the sun. The charger also only works in the sun. The message and the mechanic are the same thing.
If you can turn a placement into a small, relevant tool, you shift from attention-seeking to value-giving. That typically increases recall, sharing, and positive brand association without needing complex explanation.
Overengineering. If it requires special setup, fragile components, or unclear instructions, people will not try it. Simple inputs and fast payoff matter more than novelty.
UTEC, The University of Engineering and Technology in Peru, believes that engineering can change the world. So they decided to start by changing a local problem and in the process getting more students interested in applying for their engineering program.
Lima is the second largest capital in the world set on a desert, and the lack of potable water is a huge problem. Since the presence of rain is almost zero, UTEC used the atmospheric humidity which is about 98% to build the first billboard that produces drinking water out of air!
