When HP and Edelman Printed An Entire Billboard

When HP wanted to showcase the durability of its Smart Tank printers, it turned the traditions of advertising on its head alongside Edelman.

While just printing something out is seemingly an obvious choice to do so; printing out an OOH billboard using just a HP printer requires an eyebrow raise – both in intrigue and at its unconventional challenges.

“It gave us an opportunity to talk about the durability of the product in a very authentic way,” begins Debbie Fagan, creative director at Edelman. “There were no frills. We didn't put it on a stage. We didn't have any talent around it. We literally had the printer and the billboard.”

Printing for OOH

Data from OnePoll shows more than half of Brits rely on printing for last-minute documents, yet only one in five actually own a printer - the very insight that inspired the work. 

HP wanted to bring its Smart Tank printer to life: a printer that holds three years worth of ink in ink bottles, preventing continual refilling - something Rebecca Ojumu, senior marketing lead at HP, describes as a “pain point” in the category. 

To do so, the team decided to challenge the product and showcase the basic function of an HP printer by printing out an entire billboard ad and erect it live. The unsparingly complicated process included attaching a live printer in a Perspex box to a poster board in Clapham.

“We had to check out different kinds of glues, using different paper,” explains Fagan. “We also had to look at weatherproofing it because even though on installation day the weather was fine, it was going to be there for a month.

“What we then leveraged from a creative point of view was really looking at printer fails. The almost lottery when we send something to print - is it actually going to print? Is the last page going to be there? Are you going to run out of ink? There's always that sort of invariably when we print, it's time critical, and that's when we realise it doesn't work.”

In total, the printer printed 319 A4-sized sheets before being installed onto the OOH poster board, but it was a race against a clock to get it done. 

“Because we were doing a time lapse we started early but needed to get it done quickly because the clocks hadn't gone back yet,” adds Ojumu. “We also worked with Talon and Grand Visual who did a range of extensive tests.”

The pair describe the work as an “adrenaline rush” knowing so many aspects of the work could go wrong. 

"The great thing was that the billboard in itself wasn't just a stunt,” says Fagan. “It was actually then carrying the message, and we left the printer there so that it became the hero and people could carry on seeing it.”

Ojumu admits that when the idea was first presented questions were raised but other ideas took priority instead. “We always circled back to the idea because it was so out there but also so simple; you do have to print things to be able to stick it onto a billboard, so why can't we use our HP Smart Tanks to do so?

“We put a lot of trust in Edelman and the wider teams to really bring it to life. It definitely paid off. Even if it feels wacky, taking that risk does pay off.”

The work was completed in a quick turnaround with the agency receiving the brief just before Christmas and the campaign going live in March.

Shift in audience  

HP is a brand that traditionally targets families with children as a key audience demographic. For this project however, it identified that its Smart Tank printer would be best suited for a different audience - a consumer base it labels as 'life managers'. 

“We saw there was this growing audience segment that we weren't serving in the best way,” explains Ojumu. “They are the household decision makers, 45-plus, running the household. And how do we speak to that audience group in a new way for the UK consumer that feels relatable?”

For Edelman, further investigation into the target demographic sparked the campaign’s idea. “We found it really interesting that this group still definitely use their printers. It's a sense of control and reassurance, and also they are of that era that weren't accustomed to everything being digital,” begins Fagan. 

“We did it in a very public space to really prove that this product could actually do what it says on the tin. There's such a mistrust for this audience -particularly in things that say they do something and then they actually don't deliver on the promise. It just felt like we were really selling the true story of HP Smart Tank’s reliability in a very graphic way to suit the audience."

Rapid response activation

Also included within the campaign were in-person country-wide activations with the ‘Rapid Response Squad’, where members of the public could solve their printing problems, featuring Alexander Armstrong - picked in the hopes of appealing as a relatable figure to the audience, being a hands-on parent to four boys.

“You have that moment where you can't print but need to,” explains Fagan. “People going for interviews who want to print CVs, people who have an emergency boarding pass they couldn't print at home.

“We had around 340 real-time print jobs that people were queuing up for over the six days: people printing out birth registrations of their children, someone printing out a musical score, another person printed a gallery article - I think it was 120-odd pages.” 

The activation coincided with Mother’s Day in the UK, which, in the Farringdon location hosting Armstrong, saw people in their numbers printing Mother’s Day cards. 

“We really tried to tap into very human moments in real places and spaces, and then tried to be there where people needed us, and ended up having rather interesting conversations as a result,” outlines Ojumu. 

While the overall brief was to create more awareness of HP Smart Tank, the team recognise that half of that battle was to “show and tell” exactly what the product does. 

“The Rapid Response principle provided the opportunity to do that in such a clear way, bring the printer to the people the same way that we put the printer on the billboard for the live print execution," says Ojumu.

Making real-life connection with consumers is an important way forward for a lot of marketers, adds Fagan. “I think a lot of people are struggling in their world where everything’s digital; AI’s coming out left, right and centre, and to make that real connection and ask questions around functionality is so important. There's just something human about it right now.”

The work's reaction was a positive one, claims Ojumu, having created conversation on social media and the attention of passers-by in Clapham.

The next work, she adds, is going to be "bold"'; "This is a start - a taster of what we want to bring to the market and how we want to speak to consumers."

The brand, alongside Edelman, will continue positioning the HP Smart Tank as "the last printer you will ever need", hoping to capitalise of the momentum of its OOH success.