FBTO - Bokito Viewers

The insurance company FBTO wanted to find a creative way to promote their message of providing simple solutions to their customers. Their brand's selling point is that the company can make insurance so simple that anyone could do it through the Internet. Their ad agency, DDB Amsterdam, saw an opportunity to market the 'simple solutions' theme when a gorilla named Bokito escaped from the Rotterdam Zoo on May 18, 2007.

During its brief period of freedom, the gorilla attacked a woman who had frequently made eye contact with the gorilla -- body language behavior that gorillas consider to be threatening. The weekend following the attack, a street marketing team distributed more than 2,000 'Bokito Viewers,' simple cardboard pinprick spectacles, all imprinted with an averted gaze on the outside to enable zoo visitors to stare directly at the gorillas without threatening them.

The promotional stunt was highly successful, garnering significant media coverage on television, radio and newspapers as well as online sources like YouTube. The Bokito Viewer itself garnered around 26.000 Google hits during that period, earning the promotion a Cannes Bronze Lion. As cool as those spectacles are, I'd be afraid of wearing them in fear of accidentally provoking the gorillas when I turn to speak with a friend. Sticking with promotional sunglasses would be a far safer option.