work of art

What a great example of art meeting commerce.  The National Gallery in London partnered with Hewlett-Packard on The Grand Tour, a fabulous joint promotion cooked up by brand consultancy  The Partners.  They effectively turn Soho, Picadilly, and Covent Garden into an enormous outdoor gallery by mounting lifesize framed reproductions of famous works of art in random public places.  You can even download a walking tour to your iPod.  What a cool and memorable example of how to showcase the best of two partners without using the typical, uninspired cross-ruff coupon.

It makes me chuckle to imagine the routing process to approve these "ads".  "Can you dial up the branding on 'Bathers at Asnieres' - maybe put an HP camera in someone's hand?" "We like the colors of the Titian 'execution' but the layout of the Rubens - can you merge them together?"  "Can you substitute Eyck's 'Arnolfini Portrait' with a portrait of our target, a time-pressed "nesting nurturer" who just wants to do the best for her family"?

Anyway, thanks to my friend Ken Davidson for sending this.  We used to sit next to each other in the shadow of a huge foam Jolly Green Giant statue when we were in the "The Valley" together.  Sprout rules.