What a novel way to make people pay attention to your catalogue. Sodimac, Peru’s largest home improvement chain, is offering Peruvian passengers of real vehicles driving along Panamericana Sur a 15km virtual reality experience. Panamericana Sur is the country’s main highway and the experience doubles as an exciting ride through the home improvement chain’s summer catalogue. 

The experience is activated by Google VR viewers, which are being distributed at highway toll stops. 

The VR initiative intervenes in specific spots throughout the Panamericana Sur landscape (between its 11^th and 97^th kilometres) and replaces the traditional billboards and visual clutter that drivers have to endure. The experience presents 3D animated images of Sodimac’s main summer offerings in funny and surprising forms.

Even better, the underlying idea of the campaign is to show consumers that Sodimac is an expert when it comes to transforming and enhancing any space.

And last but not least, what is essentially a guerilla-marketing campaign uses a highly-prized and expensive advertising arena during the summer season.

Ad placements on the billboards along the highway are the Peruvian equivalent of having a Super Bowl spot. The Hijcked Highway experience demonstrates how advertisers can compete for consumer attention with far less media investment, and in this case, adding a very powerful call to action.

“The challenge was to create an advertising campaign that could be innovative and stand out in such coveted advertising space, offering our customers an unforgettable experience while promoting our products,” explained Ángela Álvarez, marketing and client strategy manager at Sodimac.

More than 40,000 VR cardboard glasses were distributed along the highway tolls stops, allowing auto passengers to see 20+ real life home improvement offers that virtually replace the billboards.

“We wanted to offer an innovative strategy that took advantage of a very commoditized media landscape and turning it into an interactive and immersive experience,” added Mauricio Fernández-Maldonado, McCann Lima’s creative vice president.

Credits:

Agency: McCann Lima

Creative VPs: Mauricio Fernández-Maldonado & Christian Caldwell

Creative Directors: Jomi Rivera & Pipo Galván

Creatives: Alvaro Soto and Gonzalo Paredes

Account service: Andrea Rosselló, Mirjana Slavkovic & Daphne Kizner

Planning VP: Juan Luis Arteaga

Production director: Alonso Palomino

Production house: Pierina Ravizza

Digital and BTL team:

Digital director: Virgina Caceres

Project manager: Angie Valiente & Monica Campos

Creatives: Andres Aranguren & Luis Veliz

Designer: Akemi Calderón

Community Manager: Marco Hernando

Promotion director: Berenice Lu

General producer: Giovanna Rojas

Executive producers: Enrique Vicente & Andrea De La Torre

Production: Saturno

Production team: Alvaro Luque, Cocler Diaz, Paola Saavedra (PSV), Bridgith Peña, Kimy Velasquez & Gabriel Loret de Mola

Film crew: Juan Pablo Polanco, Daniel Bacigalupo, Daniel Hernandez, Victor Fernandez, Jesus Gallegos, Wilder Ludeña, Cesar Enrique Silva & Wilmer (Abby Mata)

VR Production: Plan B

Production team: Percy Kiyabu & Kurt Gastulo, Julian Giraldo, Alex Ocaña, Emilio Naka, Victor Nakandakari, Oswaldo Anchayhua, Oscar Gomez, Chubi Akama, Williams Mantari, Jorge Noriega, Oswaldo Anchayhua, Oscar Gomez, Chubi Akama & Victor Nakandakari

Animation: Victor Nakandakari, Williams Mantari, Chubby Akama, Emilio Naka, Christian Orendo, Cecilia Tamashiro, Victor “Pulpin” Vegas, José Custodio & Andrés Abad

Sound production: Sin Anestesia

Crew: Claudia Incio, Jhonny Vasquez & Charly Garcia

Singers: Richi Rodriguez, Daniela Guersi, Jhonny Vasquez, Claudia Incio & Jessica Vilchez.

Client: Sodimac Homecenter

Marketing and client strategy manager: Angela Álvarez

Advertising and Communications manager: Rocío Miranda

Head of advertising: Cali Loli

Head of Digital Marketing: Diana Tanaka

Head of brand: Daniela Hoyos