Dave and Buster’s Latest 

Written by: Jimmy Burks

In Dave and Buster’s newest advertising campaign launched ahead of the college football and NFL seasons, they try to prove that they have the biggest TV display, and they have a GIANT banana to express that. Dave and Busters TV display, which is known as the WowWall, is a 40-foot display of 9 tv screens, so what better way to show people how big 40 feet is than with a giant banana, which they dropped in the middle of Hollywood at one of the largest intersections in all of Los Angeles. In partnership with Dave and Busters, the agency tasked with making this campaign, Mother New York, planned to give the WowWall the credit it deserved as one of the best viewing, dining, and gaming experiences a person can have, so they planned on giving it the attention and awareness that it deserved.

Since this is an experiential marketing campaign, the banana needs to be able to have mass audience participation, which it does in many ways from Instagram pictures to a QR code on the banana that sends you to the Dave and Busters website, this giant banana can definitely capture and excite an audience. Along with Instagram pictures, Dave and Busters added a new banana Instagram filter to generate an even broader appeal to the audience. What this ad also does is give the audience a representation of how small they are in comparison to the WowWall, allowing them to see how small you are next to something that's 40 feet.

In my opinion, what Dave and Busters and Mother New York are doing is genius, which is essentially making a “meme ad” based around young people on the internet who play games and watch sports. This ad is set to do over 2.1 million impressions a month in just the Hollywood location, which also happens to be one of the largest markets for Dave and Busters. In the end, the Banana for Scale ad happens to be one of my favorite experiential marketing ideas and campaigns of the year and fits the fun and wild brand that Dave and Busters are known for.