A piece of chalk, a brain, and a puzzle

Excerpted from an article in Media Life Magazine - by Toni Fitzgerald
There’s a gigantic chalk circle filled with squiggly lines sketched on the large landing leading down to the Kingsland train station in Auckland, New Zealand.  The circle actually looks like a human brain, with that distinctive divide down the middle for the interhemispheric fissure.

After studying the drawing, the full meaning of this Rorschach-like drawing hits you. It’s not just a brain. It’s a brain created by piecing together 18 full-sized body outlines, the ones you see at crime scenes signifying a dead body.

The drawing is an alternative media campaign for the TV show, Psychic Investigators, on New Zealand’s Prime network about a group of psychics who help solve murder and other criminal cases, hence the chalk body outlines.

The image, created by Draftfcb Auckland, conveys that psychics use their minds and nothing else to solve crimes. “Initially it was a print idea, but then we thought it would be much better to do it for real,” says Katie Loverich, an account manager for Draftfcb Auckland who worked on the campaign.

Draftfcb used liquid spray chalk and regular old chalk sticks to make the drawing. The drawing stayed in place for several days, until rain washed the chalk away.

The idea was effective because it perfectly embodied what a good alternative media stunt should do, which is get people to do a double take. The message became clear once you studied the drawing, and it was a creative way to illustrate what could have been just a mundane television campaign.