Less than half of the target audience of young Russian families find ironing to be an inspiring activity. To launch the Philips high performance iron Azur and the steamer ProTouch on the Russian market successfully we had to catch their attention with an unusual idea.

In an online video we created 'The Art Of Ironing' – an inspiring new art form, using only the Philips steamer and the iron as the right tools to create unique 'ironing paintings' with creases on plain white sheets. Links were leading to the Philips online store where you could order the products.

The idea is all non-standard. It had the potential not only to make art of household work, but also to make art of media. This is why we decided to exhibit the ironed artworks themselves as ads in outdoor adshels, modern art gallery and in-store exhibitions. We started off with a viral video campaign featuring the creation process of the works. It managed to build up general interest and gathered a lot of views, shares and likes on Russian social media. We followed it up with exhibiting some of the ironed artworks outdoors, advertising the products and the art gallery and in-store exhibitions at the same time where you could see all of them. Like this we led the audience step by step to the shops, using usual advertising media spaces in a different cultural context that made the campaign less advertising-standard, yet more inspiring for consumers.

Thousands of visitors were driven to experience the art works and Philips products in the participating stores by themselves. The sales for the iron and steamer were about 300% higher than the average sales of other brands in the shops during the campaign. Philips became the category leader on the Russian market. Numerous articles in blogs, local and global press and TV followed the campaign.