Naughty Prince Harry and Marketing Improvising

It’s quite rare to see advertising agencies improvising on certain unexpected events. Most marketing practices take a lot of time to prepare. However, if the event is a real eyeball catcher and the improvising is quick and elegant, positive results can be surely expected.

For instance, the British Prince Harry caught naked in Vegas last month. This is a significant event that can potentially be used in marketing. Lynx took the opportunity by connecting Harry’s wild night to the “Lynx Effect”. The underwear with the classic British flag logo is quite self-explanatory. And the tagline “unleashed the chaos” left much room for imagination. Moreover they even started to apologize to Harry for the possible and uncontrollable “Lynx Effect”. Lynx has been long known for its sexually alluring branding strategy. This time the royal symbols and the hormone -arousing indications blend quite smoothly.

On the other hand, some non-profit organizations also focused on that wild night and treated it as a branding opportunity. The LVCVA (known as Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority) took the advantage of this incident. However they approached in another way. A campaign called “Know the Code” was launched to support Prince Harry. The “code” was apparently referring to “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas”, which has been seen as iconic but controversial since Las Vegas became Americans’ playground. LVCVA reinforce this concept by accusing those paparazzi for disrespecting to the code or others’ privacies. At the same while, LVCVA suggested people to carefully choose travel companions when going to Vegas. And what’s interesting is that in their advocacy letter, iconic features of Vegas, like bottle service, bikini clad girls were substantially emphasized. On the other poster, the famous quote “keep calm and carry on” was adopted. Personally I’m quite curious about Prince Harry’s reaction upon seeing such encouragement.

Pitifully, it’s unlikely that Harry can have the chance of reading the encouragements by LVCVA. Both of their posters were put on “USA Today”. But the Lynx commercial printed on “Suns” can easily found by the royal family. Despite the possible offend to the royal family; Lynx and LVCVA drew lots of attention. These posters were originally designed for papers. They ended up being reposted,  shared and “liked” for thousands of times.

By quickly responding to Prince’s embarrassing moment, both Lynx and LVCVA provided concreteness, unexpectedness in a simple way. Improvising marketing based on certain eye catching event is like standing on the shoulders giants.