The Specsavers Stunt That Got the UK Talking: Serendipity or Marketing Mastery?

When I was scrolling through LinkedIn on Monday morning, a certain image kept cropping up on my feed, often accompanied by the sentence, “You couldn’t make this up”.

On Saturday night on Edinburgh’s Castle Street, Scots were stunned as they saw a Specsavers’ branded van, with its butt suspended in the air by a bollard. Beside it, a perfectly placed red sign warning ‘CAUTION. AUTOMATIC BOLLARDS IN OPERATION. NO PARKING’. 

Passersby, bamboozled and amused in equal measure, filmed the whole thing through shaky phones; thick Scottish accents chuckling whilst saying, “Brillyint. Shuid hae gaen tae fucken' Specsavers”. Even the World Bollard Association posted to congratulate the company, calling the escapade ‘magnificent’, with the image garnering over 460 thousand views at the time of writing. 

But, there’s something else to be considered here too. Looking at this moment in isolation does a disservice to the work that has gone into the brand since the inception of the phrase back in 2002. Think about it. For our eyes to catch a scene and automatically jump to a slogan without any mental gymnastics is a pretty massive feat. This is branding that has worked tirelessly to embed itself into the psyche of ordinary people. 

The Metro’s article about the incident headlines, ‘We don’t need to tell this driver where he should have gone’. It turns out, we don’t even need to say the phrase anymore in order to connect the dots.      

I spoke to the director of Specsavers’ marketing services, Victoria Clarke to find out the answer to the question on everyone’s lips: Happy accident, or marketing mastery?

Here’s what they she to say: 

LBB> First things first, we need to know - was this constructed or coincidence?  

Victoria> We can confirm the supposed van mishap isn’t one of our drivers having a bad day – it's an addition to our latest ‘Should’ve Gone to Specsavers’ (SGTS) campaign that’s been live since February. 

LBB> Let’s talk origins - how did the idea first come about and when? How long did it take from conception to fruition?  

Victoria> For all our SGTS campaigns, Specsavers Marketing works closely with in-house creative team, Specsavers Creative, as well as media, social media and PR agencies (Manning Gottlieb, Tangerine, Golin) focusing on delivering an integrated campaign. 

In response to this specific brief, Specsavers Creative came up with several out of home (OOH) ideas, partnering with Grand Visual to finesse the execution. The team suggested the specific bollard approach in January 2024, which has been a work in progress since early February and live since the evening of 23rd March 2024. 

LBB> Where and when did the stunt occur? Was there any particular reasoning behind these decisions? 

Victoria> Having previously placed some special-build OOH sites in London and Leeds in our previous SGTS campaign in 2022, we wanted to ensure we were sharing the light-hearted fun across the nation. So, Scotland and another northern UK location (that aligned with local council approval) were our priorities for this campaign. The first location was in Edinburgh, on Castle Street. The build began late evening on Saturday 23rd (the team started seeing interest from the public almost immediately!) and stayed in place on Castle Street until the evening of Monday 25th March. 

The second location is Liverpool, Peter’s Lane in the Liverpool ONE shopping complex. The build took place late evening on Tuesday 26th March and will remain in place until the evening of Saturday 30th March. 

Working with Grand Visual, the team secured a small written-off van and created bollards based on actual automatic bollards. To support the humour and make the stunt as interactive and realistic as possible, we added our own warning signage and a special ‘Should’ve’ parking ticket, supported by some Specsavers clothing and merchandise pieces for the interior props. We’re very happy with the final outcome of how each element works together.

LBB> This is OOH marketing done right - it’s got people talking, and doing so organically for much of it. Did you do anything strategic to ensure these sparks flew? Were you surprised at all by the reaction? 

Victoria> We’re in a fortunate position with our ‘Should’ve gone to Specsavers’ tagline being part of the cultural vernacular, and given the public don’t miss a trick… we were hopeful they’d see the irony in this mishap and want to share what they’d witnessed. 

We’re surprised and delighted [by] how quickly the pick-up came in on social channels and in media articles – even as the van was in the final stages of being placed on Saturday night. It’s been brilliant to see how people have engaged with it, taking photos, telling us our driver needs an eye test, and questioning how someone could miss the big red warning sign.

LBB> What lessons are you taking forward from this project?  

Victoria> With any activation we implement, Specsavers is always looking to improve things, and see how we can go bigger and better when it comes to SGTS campaigns. As a team, we’re continuously developing ideas together. Such ideas are always very carefully thought through and planned, as we never want to be insensitive. All our activations work best when there is a clear role for Specsavers and a clear link to sight or hearing tests.

LBB> A notable post on socials was actually from the World Bollard Association on X. Did you have anything to do with this?  

Victoria> This was purely organic; a happy coincidence. We’re very happy that the van was picked up by the World Bollard Association – we’ll be giving them a follow for all the latest bollard news. 

LBB> Something about the project that readers might be surprised to learn? 

Victoria> As of yesterday morning, it had 150 million plus media impressions.

LBB> Tell us about any challenges you faced and how they were overcome 

Victoria> We had to consider council restrictions, which unfortunately meant we lost a location in Wales, where we were keen to appear for this campaign. 

Some of our earlier concepts were also taken off the table due to restraints on what we could install, but we saw this as a positive [opportunity] to generate new, alternative ideas, and [it] resulted in an execution we’re all excited about. 

Generally, the process has been smooth, with thanks to the help of Grand Visual which managed the core logistics of sourcing the locations, van, creating the bollards etc.  

LBB> For marketers wanting to pull off successful OOH, what would your main piece of advice be? 

Victoria> Be choiceful, and do things which will have the maximum impact to achieve your reach goals.

LBB> Any plans for your next stunt? 

Victoria> What stunt? 

LBB> Who played what role in the OOH? Any special thanks? 

Victoria> Yes. Grand Visual (Talon) - special mentions to Lauren Kilgannon, Georgia Hamp, Georgia Harrison and Nathelie Meng.

Specsavers Marketing -  special mentions to Lauren Heidi Ellis, media strategist, Simone Roberts, senior marketing activation manager, Anna Alder, marketing strategist and Nicola Gibbons, PR and social manager. 

Specsavers Creative - special mentions to Katie Digweed, creative business partner, Felicity Pelly, lead creative business partner, Matt Thomas, senior integrated producer, Rachel Brehaut, studio manager, Abbie Greening, integrated production artist, Martyn Brown, integrated production artist, Richard James, creative director and Pollyanna Evelegh, senior creative strategist. 

Manning Gottlieb - special mention to Ashley Edwards.

A huge thank you to the whole team at Grand Visual who have made this possible and worked closely with Specsavers’ marketing and creative teams to deliver this moment of light-hearted fun to the people of Edinburgh, Liverpool and beyond.