Tag: public installation

Contrex: The Contrexperience

When diet culture repeats, brands look for a better hook

In European FMCG marketing, “health” messages often fail when they sound like lectures. Contrex looked for a way to make the same truth feel like an experience instead of advice.

Every year, magazines announce new fad diets. And each time, the conclusion is the same. It does not work. To lose weight effectively and permanently, one must adopt a balanced diet, drink water, and do regular exercise.

So Contrex, a mineral water brand owned since 1992 by Nestle Waters, decided to create an ambient campaign that showed how losing weight could be fun.

How the ambient idea turned effort into play

The mechanism was to move the message out of print logic and into physical behavior.

Rather than telling people to exercise, the campaign created an environment where movement was the point, and where participation delivered a visible, enjoyable payoff. The installation did what most health messaging cannot. It made action feel lighter than intention.

Why “fun” can outperform discipline

Fad diets fail for a predictable reason. They demand willpower every day, and they punish slips.

By contrast, play removes friction. When exercise feels like a game, people start without negotiating with themselves. That first step matters because health change is rarely blocked by knowledge. It is blocked by starting.

Contrex used that psychological shift to reframe weight loss from restriction to participation.

The business intent behind making weight loss entertaining

The intent was to connect Contrex with a sustainable, realistic path to wellness, not a temporary fix.

By associating the brand with water, movement, and balance, the campaign positioned Contrex as a companion to everyday healthy behavior. In a category where the product is easily interchangeable, that behavioral association is where differentiation lives.

What to steal for your next wellness campaign

  • Turn advice into action. If your message is behavioral, build an experience that makes the behavior happen.
  • Design for a low-friction start. The first minute matters more than the perfect plan.
  • Use play as a motivator. Fun can carry people further than discipline messaging.
  • Link brand value to the routine. The brand should feel like part of the habit, not a slogan around it.

A few fast answers before you act

What is Contrexperience?

An ambient campaign by Contrex designed to show that exercise and weight-loss motivation can be fun, not just disciplined.

What problem was Contrex responding to?

Recurring fad-diet cycles that promise quick fixes but do not lead to lasting results.

What was the core mechanism?

Move the health message into a physical, participatory experience that rewards movement and lowers the barrier to starting.

Why does a “fun” approach work in wellness messaging?

Because play reduces friction and gets people moving without requiring constant willpower negotiations.

What is the transferable takeaway for brands?

If your product supports healthy behavior, build experiences that make the behavior feel easy to start and satisfying to repeat.

CNN International: Go Beyond Borders

A brand message written into a city’s geography

In European public-space storytelling, the strongest initiatives do not ask people to remember. They make history physically reappear in the places where it happened.

The Go Beyond Borders Project was an initiative of Heimat Berlin and CNN International, in conjunction with Berlin tape artist El Bocho, created around the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

40 km of Go Beyond Borders tape was produced to mark the original position of the Berlin Wall, and eight street art installations told heroic stories of those who conquered the divide between East and West Berlin.

How the project worked as a city-scale marker

The mechanism combined two layers.

First, the tape traced the former Wall line, turning an invisible historical boundary into a visible path you could follow. Second, the street art installations anchored that path with human stories, making the line about people, not only geography.

It was simple enough to understand instantly, but large enough to feel unavoidable once you encountered it.

Why it landed harder than a conventional commemoration

Most anniversaries stay inside ceremonies, speeches, and media coverage.

This one put the memory back into the street. The tape created a direct, physical confrontation with “where the divide was.” The art installations made the meaning legible by focusing on courage and crossing, not abstraction.

That shift matters because it turns history into presence, and presence into conversation.

The intent behind “Go Beyond Borders”

The action also marked the launch of CNN’s new international slogan: Go Beyond Borders.

The business intent was to associate the brand with perspective, movement, and crossing divides, using a real-world symbol that already carries emotional weight. Rather than declaring what the slogan means, the initiative demonstrated it through a place-based experience people could encounter and share.

What to steal for your next place-based brand initiative

  • Make the invisible visible. If the story is spatial, mark it in the real world so people can physically encounter it.
  • Pair scale with human narrative. A city-scale gesture earns attention. Stories earn meaning.
  • Use a simple rule. One clear device. Here, tape tracing the line. Makes participation and comprehension effortless.
  • Let the message be demonstrated. If your slogan is about crossing boundaries, show a boundary and what it took to cross it.

A few fast answers before you act

What was the Go Beyond Borders Project?

An initiative by Heimat Berlin and CNN International with artist El Bocho that used tape and street art to mark the former Berlin Wall line and tell stories of crossing East and West Berlin.

What was the core mechanism?

40 km of tape traced the Wall’s original position, while eight street art installations provided narrative anchors and human context.

Why did the tape approach work so well?

Because it turned an abstract memory into a physical, walkable marker that people could encounter in everyday life.

What business goal did this support?

Launching and giving meaning to CNN’s “Go Beyond Borders” slogan by demonstrating it through a culturally significant, real-world experience.

What is the main takeaway?

If you want a message to stick, embed it in a place people can experience, then reinforce it with stories that explain why it matters.