Cosmetics brand Lancôme is bringing art to (virtual) life in a new marketing program built for Toronto’s annual Luminato Festival.
Entitled “20 Bloggers for a Rose: The Lancôme Virtual Gallery,” the program uses mobile technology to create a virtual art gallery at the festival hub, Toronto’s David Pecaut Square.
A free downloadable app (“Lancôme Virtual Gallery”) will enable Luminato attendees to scan the area around the square and bring 20 images sourced from Canadian lifestyle, fashion and beauty bloggers to life on their phone. Festival-goers will also be able to share their favourite images via Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.
The experience is only available within a 150-metre radius of David Pecaut Square, and will run through June 20.
All of the images are placed in the shape of a rose, the Lancôme logo. While not part of the user experience, sophisticated software will aggregate all of the cellphone movements and interactions to create what is being called the world’s first “human heat map logo” in the shape of the Lancôme rose.
“This is part of the subtlety of not letting technology overrun a good user experience,” said Adrian Capobianco, managing director of digital for Cundari, the Toronto agency that developed the program. “The technology behind it is unbelievable, but to the person on the ground it’s just this interesting experience.
“From a brand experience, we didn’t want to make it a hard sell – we wanted to create this artistic, engaging and entertaining experience that fits with the people who are going to Luminato.”
Cundari, which is working with Lancôme on a project basis, first began conceptualizing the program about three months ago and has been “heavy in development” for the past six to eight weeks, said Capobianco.
The program was developed in association with the Location Based Marketing Association and CrowdOptic, a U.S. startup that specializes in technology that identifies where people are pointing their smartphone cameras. The company’s technology is behind an app called Friend Spotter, which enables users to find their Facebook friends around the world.
The app also features a contest in which people can enter for a chance to win $500 worth of Lancôme product. Up to one million people are expected to attend Luminato during its June 14-23 run.
