Gisele raises eyebrows and expectations on escalators

It was a dreary Monday morning, raining yet again, and I was riding the escalators at Piccadilly Circus heading above ground after my journey in from Chiswick. I wasn’t in the mood to take notice of anything much. However, the giant images of Gisele in Esprit’s new advertising campaign suddenly made me sit up and take notice. I wasn’t the only one. All eyes were glued.

The campaign is a real triumph of low-tech over high tech. I might have missed something, but I’ve never seen an ad campaign on the central reservation bit between underground escalators.

Esprit might not be the first to do this, but they’ve made really striking use of the space using images of different shapes and sizes. The impact lies in the unexpected use of the medium and the sheer size and gorgeousness of the visuals. Gisele is lovely and the collection doesn’t look half bad too.

Now, I know a lot has been written about digital display panels and other high tech innovations on the underground and there have been some clever campaigns using the media, but to my mind, nothing hits home quite in the same way as this low-tech ad example from Esprit (I looked really closely, and it really was simply some sort of sticky back plastic appliqué thingie). And it actually might sell stuff – not a natural Esprit shopper (well, there were a couple of items from a few seasons back), I’m truly tempted to take a wander round the Regent Street Store.