Covid-19 creates a new advertising medium: The socially distant cardboard dummy
Aug 27, 2020, 5:01pm CDT
You can belly up to the bar at Edina’s Town Hall Station, but don’t expect to get any conversation out of the dummy sitting one stool over. That’s no slight to the average intelligence of Town Hall Station’s patrons. The Edina outpost for Minneapolis’ Town Hall Brewery is the first bar to test run colorful, three-dimensional cardboard dummies as a social-distancing cue for customers. Designed by Minneapolis-based creative agency Skully Rebels, the Social Distance Dummies not only gently reinforce the state’s social distancing guidelines for restaurants, they make rooms currently limited to 50% capacity due to the pandemic feel a little fuller. Alcohol brands and other potential advertisers may also recognize an opportunity to place their message on a human-sized billboard — one seat over from their target audience. Skully Rebels co-owner Darren Tibbits, a regular at Town Hall Station, said the idea evolved from a brainstorming session with business partner Jordan Rohweder, with whom he co-founded the creative agency earlier this year. Both count numerous friends in the hospitality industry, and they were looking for a creative way to help bars and restaurants through tough times.
Their first idea was “Sack the Apps,” a social media campaign that encouraged diners to avoid ordering takeout through third-party apps, whose fees eat into the revenue restaurants earn on delivery. Then they started thinking about what’s coming this winter, when the patios helping many bars and restaurants survive the summer will have to close. Noting that pandemic-era safety guidelines hamper the ability of bars and restaurants to create a convivial atmosphere, they kicked around some potential solutions. “It’s one thing to just tape off or block off bar stools. What can we do to make it feel artful and quirky and fun? And, also, we thought, if we’re going to be taking up bar space, it makes sense to promote something or market a beer brand or a liquor brand or a company,” Tibbits said. The dummies also help staff enforce social distancing guidelines without having to say a word. Social media has documented numerous instances since the start of the pandemic when a reminder to mask up or to keep six feet of distance prompts a confrontation. “That's not fun. That’s not a good, positive experience that restaurant owners want to have. Everything is already tense anyway,” Tibbits said. The final design of their social distance dummies came together with help from Apropros Studio, a Minneapolis studio that creates paintings and designs sculptures and props for commercial spaces. With a patent pending on their social distance dummies, Tibbits and Rohweder are marketing their product not just to bars and restaurants but also potential advertisers, who might foot the bill for a restaurant’s dummies in exchange for the opportunity. Unlike a coaster, this ad doesn’t get covered by a pint glass.“You could essentially have a billboard sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with your target demographic throughout the state, if not the nation,” Tibbits said. Tibbits said the cost works out to about $120 per dummy for a small run, but the price comes down for a larger volume.
For now, Town Hall Station is using the social distance dummies to market its own beers. Town Hall owner Pete Rifakes said he’s meeting with Tibbits and Rohweder this week and may order more of the dummies for his three Minneapolis stores. “It’s a great way to show off your merchandise, too,” he added. “We started putting T-shirts on them.” Rifakes said he recently took a seat at the Town Hall Station bar to experience the social distance dummies firsthand. Noting that one of the big downers of pandemic dining is all the empty chairs in dining rooms, Rifakes said the dummies help fill the space out and add to the atmosphere. “You have a few drinks and they look a little more real,” he said.