The Guardian, as part of an experiential stunt  begged passers-by to break the emergency glass they were housed in and take a complimentary copy of Guardian Weekly. It was a novel approach from the newspaper that it hoped would drive more international readers to the magazine. Germany has since its launch the largest of the EU markets for the publication, where it has seen growth of 54% since its re launch in 2018.

“We noticed we had impressive growth in Europe, so we wanted to see if we could stimulate more awareness for the product without tonnes of cash,” explained Kate Davies, director of brand and awareness at the Guardian. “We needed to be smart with our budget, so we looked at hyper-localized markets.” And so Berlin became the site of a major experiential stunt, a first of its kind for the Guardian, that was developed by its in-house ad agency Oliver.

Berlin-dwellers came face-to-face with a line of alluring red emergency boxes asking them to break the glass in case of various emergencies, using the small hammer hanging alongside. In case of climate inaction, injustice, corruption, and corporate greed, guard yourself with knowledge.

“When we considered the fact we are living in a state of emergency, the emergency box came to mind,” explained Sam Jacobs creative director of the Guardian’s in-house creative agency. “The idea is you can smash the glass, read the magazine and arm yourself with facts. It’s a nice visual way to display the product.”

Past the one-day stunt, the campaign will continue for three weeks which will see 2,000 flyposters, a smattering of OOH videos shown on screens around the city showing the process of the glass being broken and a digital ad campaign.

“Flyposting feels right for our brand, it feels like the Guardian thing to do,” Davies said. “One of our media buying principles is ‘not glossy.’ We’re not into big expensive, media buy. We like to show we are part of a community.” Hoping to reach “progressive, news junkies” Davies explained it’s a “brand awareness campaign. We’re hoping to see an uplift of 10% - fingers crossed its more. A 10% increase in traffic to the key Guardian Weekly pages and our subscript

She said there is also an acquisition team working on capturing some raised awareness and interest. “We’re hoping to see that translate quickly into subscriptions - it’s about increasing traffic and awareness of the product.” The plan is to take it to its other key European cities, but Davies conceded that, due to limited funds, the pace at which it does this will be slow.