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Real launchpad for super hero ‘brands’
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EVERY MARKETER knows that, occasionally, you have to do something spectacular to give your brand a boost.
How do you do that if your brand is made up of super heroes? Mattel’s answer is its Extreme Toy Travel campaign – which is currently sending Superman into space, with the help of RS Components and the electronics engineering community DesignSpark.
Mattel’s Extreme Toy Travel marketing campaign takes its action figures to exotic and extreme locations all around the world and engages children in these ‘adventures’ through modern communications and social media. But they had to do something special for Superman, after all.
Inspired by Felix Baumgartner’s record-breaking freefall from the edge of space in 2012, Mattel Italy, together with La Scatola dei Giocattoli, a support project for Mattel customers, approached RS to replicate this jump with one of its Superman action figures. RS teamed up with Rlab, a peer run community hackspace, card modeller Jude Pullen , and high altitude balloonist Dave Akerman , to send Superman to space and back in a custom-built capsule.
A team of makers, hackers and engineers on the DesignSpark community designed and built a capsule that is attached to a weather balloon. The craft, packed full of electronics and 3D printed components designed for the mission using DesignSpark software, travelled to a height of around 39km at the edge of space, where Superman then freefell back to Earth.
The capsule included a Raspberry Pi to capture mission data, as well as a specially designed tracking unit to locate and retrieve Superman.
The launch took place on September 12, from Ross-on-Wye in Herefordshire, the UK.
During the flight, the mission data was collected along with HD videos and images. Both Superman and the capsule were monitored through a radio connection and a GPS.
At the end of the mission, RS posted the video footage and all the design files, bill of materials and design notes on the DesignShare section of DesignSpark under an open source licence so others could build their own.
Both Mattel and RS shared with their communities a video to show Superman’s flight to space and back, enhancing their brands to new audiences through a most unusual project.
“I wanted to personally follow the launch of the spaceship with Superman,” Mattel South East Europe associate digital marketing manager Andrea Ziella said.
“It has been very exciting for me to see the Toy Travel in Space project come to life. The whole experience felt like travelling back in time to when I was a kid and dreamt about going to the moon with ships I had built myself.
“We are delighted to be partnering with La Scatola dei Giocattoli and RS Components to create this unique journey that demonstrates their innovation and technology expertise.”
Ms Ziella said the Toy Travel project also aims to enrich children’s learning experience and inspire their competitive creativity by engaging them to build their own spaceship and posting the design on the La Scatola dei Giocattoli website. La Scatola dei Giocattoli is a project born in 2013 with the purpose to engage both adults and children in a different point of view on the world of toys, promoting creative exchanges, social medialinks, online entertainment and by developing real-world events.
www.lascatoladeigiocattoli.it/viaggiodeigiocattoli/ .
www.rs-online.com/designspark/electronics/eng/blog/hack-superman-launch-day
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