Cool Campaign: Sydney Harbour gets Stapled

For its launch into the Australian market, stationery company Staples used viral video as the primary tool in its marketing mix. In a sector dominated by local business and with such ‘stationary’ subject material as it were, Staples had to come up with something out of the box to capture local interest.

Staples created a scale model of Sydney Harbour built entirely of stationery to mark the launch of Australian website. The catch – the model was made entirely of Staples stationery products. A time lapse video was filmed of artists working on the model as it took shape. Distributed with the official launch announcement, the video went viral within hours. 

The Sydney Harbour bridge was made entirely out of bulldog clips and the world famous Opera House was a gleaming shade of white painted entirely out of tippex! The model was created from 344 recycled sticky notes, 84 boxes of staples, 361 bulldog clips, 169 paperclips, 107 rubber bands and 132 coloured pencils.

So far the video has chocked up over 90,000 views and generated mainstream media coverage and kudos amongst the often cynical Australian marketing media. This campaign is a great example of how a creative idea using social media can be applied for almost any brand.