Background
South Korea is a country without its own oil reserves. Seoul, the city where one fourth of Koreans live, also has one of the world's highest levels of gasoline consumption. And the situation is getting worse. Car usage is increasing. Petroleum costs are rising. Parking spaces are scarce. People are stressed out. Every day, a Seoul driver wanders about 500 metres in search of a parking space. In a month, this equals 15km or 1 litre of gas.
Aim
S-oil, one of Korea's four petroleum companies, decided to see how much of an impact it could make on petroleum use in one parking lot, on a single day.
Execution
The "Here" campaign's premise was simple. Cheil and S-Oil set up a "Here" floating balloon at each parking spot. As a car parks, the balloon sinks. When the car leaves and the spot is available, the large, yellow, arrow-shaped balloon rises again. The easily spotted balloons means less carpark circling, which means more oil saved. The event was held at a large theme park's carpark on 7 January.
Result
The balloons helped save gas for about 700 cars in that one day, or about 23 litres, earning the gas company a green reputation. If this experiment was extended, S-Oil could end up saving over 8000 litres of petroleum a year. The success of the one-off event has inspired the client to consider expanding it into an ongoing campaign.
