Land Rover On Display... At The Zoo!

What better way to show off the Defender's wild side than by putting on display at the zoo!

When you go to the zoo you expect to see wild animals. OK, formerly wild animals. How fitting that the vehicle that was no doubt most responsible for capturing those animals in the wild - The Land Rover Defender - be put on display alongside them! That's what some clever fellows at an Filadélfia Comunicação in Belo Horizonte, a city of some 2.4 million people (about five hours northwest of Rio de Janeiro) decided when challenged to come up with a way to depict the ruggedly wild nature of this beast without spending a lot of money.

“The first idea was to make an ad with a picture of the car in the zoo, and run it in selected magazines,” says Dan Zecchinelli, copywriter at Filadélfia. “Then we thought, why not do the real thing? We contacted the city zoo, presented the idea, and they were very impressed about it.”

They put the vehicle behind a fence with its right front wheel atop a rock, as if it were about to clamber over it, just as it would in the wild.

Land Rover was mighty impressed with the results, too. The display ran for a full month, from March 23 to April 23 and over that time it was seen by about 80,000 zoo visitors, many of whom found it very amusing. The agency at one point went out and shot video of visitors clustered around the vehicle. Total cost? Just $2,500. The money was donated to the Society of Friends of Belo Horizonte Zoo, a nonprofit, which delivered the added benefit of positive press. Says Zecchinelli: "So a lot of good publicity was involved too.”

All told, he estimates that $2,500 generated around $10,000 worth of media coverage, including stories in three local newspapers. Nice work!