Summer frequently signals a drop in the number of people floating. A Float Challenge is a great way to draw people in during the slower summer months and get them excited about floating while raising awareness for your business.
Want to help me create a summer campaign for your business? I’d love to know if you’re in by Friday the 24th to start judging the scale of this project.
If you’re in, you can help support the project at the bottom of this page.
A little background
For the last two years, the Float Shoppe has put on a summer campaign that combines gamification and a fun & engaging theme to get floaters in tanks over the slower summer months. We call it the Heroic Summer Float Challenge and it has managed to really excite our floaters and gets them in our doors floating with greater frequency during the slow days of summer and also leads to more membership sign-ups. Our staff really enjoys putting on this challenge as well and seeing the excitement of customers who participate in it. Here’s what it looks like:
For about 4 weeks we ask customers who sign-up (free of charge) to track how much they float. The more they float, the more they unlock prizes within the Float Shoppe such as a free float, reduced priced massages, etc. Each float you participate in also gets you a chance to win a grand-prize (ours is a trip to a local hot springs resort). The winner last year has floated with us for years and broke into tears after hearing he had won!
Gazzy by Gazzo will be providing our 80’s themed bathing suits!
The marketing assets we’ve used in the past involved small cartoon characters (known as chibis) that are warriors, mages, wizards etc, taking a break in a float tank and/or showing the benefits of floating with the tagline “even heroes need to recharge”. They are incredibly fun and are effective at drawing customers into the challenge. We even print out the images and put them up around our center so people know the challenge is going on.
The Vision
This year I’ve been inspired to do something different with our marketing of the campaign and instead of using someone else art, use my float photography for our campaign images. I’d like to use models dressed in 80’s clothes/swimsuits with neon lighting to accomplish communicating the same message (show how floating benefits floaters during and after floats with a very light-hearted fun aesthetic). Think of Madonna in a float tank and I think you’ve got a good image of what’s in my head! I’d even like to get these models in regular 80’s clothes (i.e. not in the water) showing off their fashion. The aesthetic will also include 80’s fonts in the images and potentially some chromatic aberration so people can really feel like they’re viewing this through an old CRT. The entire campaign will have a retro-style gamification that will award points for prizes (you decide what they are) encouraging lots of floating during the campaign run. Basically, I want to take the professionalism of my current work and add a fun 80’s aesthetic.
The Expanded Vision
I have a connection to a major video/photography studio that would be interested in collaborating on this project. I’d love to take this project to the next level by using this studio for some elements outside of the tank but with water involved. Examples might include major lighting upgrades, water flying around, wire-work so that models can be hovering off the ground, etc. Some of these images would then be superimposed to be within a float tank (i.e. a model meditating over the water of a float tank).
I know I can get 1-2 models (1 male 1 female) with a variety of shots, but I’d like to increase that number to at least 4-5 to increase ethnic and body diversity of the campaign.
I’d also like to use professional hair and make-up with these models!
I own an LED light wand that can create bright pinks and purples, but a second light wand would make a huge difference in the sophistication of these images. I would love to include a very short (30 second to 2 minute) video with these models as well with potential narration. A pipe dream is also for all of this to tell some kind of story, but I worry that would over complicate things (yup, that’s the thing I think would over complicate this! LoL)
I would even like to pay for professional fonts for the images. (The ones in the concept shot above is using free fonts online).
The Ask
I’d love to see how many businesses would be willing to pony up $100 to help fund the creation of this campaign. I’d love those who commit to the cost to also help (via a FB group) brainstorm ideas of what they’d like to see in the shoot, what images, clothes, themes you’d like to see. The more people who commit, the bigger the scale, the more models, the more outfits, the more creatively extreme the studio shoots get to be. By July 1st you get to launch your own 80’s themed Float Challenge!
What You Get
– By July 1st, receive an entire ad campaign including social media images, email images, website banner images as well as some bonus images. Images will personify the benefits of floating in the tank or post-float. Meditation, Physical recovery, increased creativity, better sleep, etc. (help me with content ideas!)
– By June 24th receive at least one teaser image to prime your audience for the campaign.
– General marketing plan for you to use as a guide to roll out your campaign.
– Input on what the campaign looks like.
The Risk
I want to launch July 1st and that means I have time to plan and execute, but in the end it’s entirely possible that things go awry, models don’t show, memory cards randomly scramble, etc. That means you need to have faith in my ability to get this done on a timeline.The worst thing I can imagine (short of a random act of god shutting this project down) would be some content being released while the campaign is still running. In my mind that’s not really an option. If by an act of a god this the project isn’t completed, a full refund would be issued.