A Dramatic Surprise on a Quiet Square ("Push to Add Drama")
TNT (Turner Broadcasting System Europe)2012
A Dramatic Surprise on a Quiet Square, better known as “Push to Add Drama”, is a 2012 live stunt for TNT, created by Duval Guillaume Modem, Antwerp.
The line
Push to add drama.
Why it works
The big red button that started a genre. To launch the US channel TNT in Flanders, a network promising 'We know drama', Duval Guillaume Modem put a button on a pedestal in the quiet market square of Aarschot, with a sign inviting passers-by to 'push to add drama'. Whoever pressed it set off a rapid chain of staged mayhem — an ambulance, an accident, a brawl, a shoot-out between gangsters and police, an American football team — capped by a banner unrolling down a building: 'Your daily dose of drama'. The sequence was performed several times and cut into one film, released almost entirely through YouTube and social media. Within weeks it had around 31 million views and ranked as the second most-shared ad ever, behind Volkswagen's 'The Force'. It won three Eurobest Grands Prix. It is studied as the template for the hidden-trigger brand stunt, endlessly imitated since, and for making a channel's promise physically true in public.
Techniques
- Participation Invites passers-by to press a big red button, and whoever does triggers the whole show.
- Guerrilla and ambient Stages a rapid chain of mayhem in a quiet market square, from an ambulance to a shoot-out, before a banner unrolls.
- Demonstration Proves the channel's promise of drama by making it physically happen in a sleepy town square.
Sources · 4
Updated
