£10M HP Christmas push to include interactive bus-stops

As part of its &£10m Christmas marketing push, computer hardware giant Hewlett-Packard (HP) will be wrapping bus-shelters in bright colours. The shelters will feature images of passers-by thanks to built-in interactive technology.

The bus-shelters, completely wrapped in colours such as fuchsia, will be located in major UK cities, including London and Manchester. The bus-shelters feature interactive screens that allow people to take pictures of themselves, which are then projected onto the shelters.

The Christmas campaign strategy is based around “brilliant colours”, focusing on the importance of colour and its impact on people’s moods. It promotes HP’s small-format dedicated photo printer. The campaign is running across all media platforms, with the straplines “Brilliant meets simple” and “Endlessly brilliant”, which according to HP UK consumer marketing manager Celina Hands emphasises the ease of use of HP’s products.

Hands adds that as part of its Christmas push, HP will be doing fieldwork to “talk directly to customers”. She says the company is deploying its biggest in-store demonstration campaign to date, with demonstrations in outlets including Comet, Dixons and PC World.

Media buying is through Zenith Optimedia and creative work is by Publicis.

HP is still trying to replace vice-president of marketing for Europe, the Middle East and Africa Amanda Mackenzie, who left the computer company to take charge of marketing at British Gas. HP is cutting 968 jobs in the UK next year as part of a global restructure. The job losses will affect the IT, human resources and finance departments, but it is not clear whether marketers will be hit.