Bus Shelters on the Magnificent Mile
Ed Debevic’s, Chicago’s most famous retro themed diner, was making a comeback after an 8 year hiatus and needed to get the word. Since they wanted to target the thousands of tourists walking down Michigan Ave, the Ed’s team purchased space on two bus shelters.
The Problem: Ed’s is located just off Michigan Ave and is easily missed by pedestrians.
The Solution: Create visually striking ads that would go on 2 bus shelters on Michigan Ave
Services: Design / Photography Direction / Editing
A reflective Nightmare
The restaurant is covered in lights, chrome and neon, making it tricky to achieve the shots we wanted. In order to better control the reflections, I bought a large piece of plexiglass.
Despite having the flexibility of the plexiglass, we had trouble getting the whole crew to pose the way the photographer and I wanted. Balancing on tables, chairs and each other, the servers managed to get into position.
The Concept
The bus shelters needed to be bright and in your face in order to capture the attention of commuters and tourists alike.
The biggest challenge would be coordinating the servers for a photoshoot within the restaurant during closing hours. The photographer and I had one shot to get the photos we needed, so I loosely sketched a variety of ideas in order to create a fast-paced flow for the photoshoot.
The winning concepts?
Escape from the bus shelter, with servers pressing their faces against glass trying to break free.
A greaser and a nerd, with one server pouring a milkshake all over another.
You only get one shot
Concept 2 required us to get messy. Servers Skip (the Greaser) and Buzzy (the nerd) were chosen to execute our milkshake dumping dreams. Everyone got into position, and with Buzzy’s consent, Skip poured a strawberry milkshake all over Buzzy’s head. The rest of the staff cheered while the photographer furiously snapped pictures.
The shot.
The edit.
The shot.
The edit.
Time for design
With our shots secured, I got to work adding Ed’s signature branding. Each bus shelter would need to include a headline, address and qr code. The qr codes lead to different landing pages so the Ed’s team could track conversion rates.
Directions for Dummies
Ed Debevic’s location is tucked away on a side street, making it difficult to spot if you don’t know where to look.
To help potential customers, I created a landing page with a custom map in combination with some ‘Ed-ified’ directions to the restaurant.
The final product
The bus shelters were live for 2 months. From go live to take down, the Ed’s team reported an increase in foot traffic, particularly around lunch time. The landing pages showed the Get in Here bus shelter garnered the most engagement, with over 200 unique visits.
Loved the marketing work?
Make sure to check out the other projects I worked on for Ed Debevic’s!
