Spotted: in Piccadilly, Southbank and Westminster

London is a great base for marketers since there’s always something new afoot. So what’s been happening? The Piccadilly Lights have been switched off with new advertising opportunities afoot.  Londoners could experience a Virgin Holidays tropical treehouse retreat at Southbank in freezing January temperatures. Webminster tube station became the new name for Westminster, staged by Amazon. Emergency Heinz soup appeared across town. And Fitness First opened their doors to strike-hit London commuters - again.

Piccadilly Lights revamp

The advertising display at Piccadilly Circus was switched off on 16 January and will stay that way for 6 months. In that time the patchwork of LED ads that comprise Piccadilly Lights will be transformed one of the highest resolution single screen LED boards for an ad of this size. Six brands will be able to share the ad space at this landmark location or a single advertiser can use the whole screen for motion ads. It’s estimated that 100 million people see the Piccadilly Circus ads each year. Get the full story from the owner of Piccadilly lights, Land Securities.

It’s not long ago that Marie Curie staged a takeover of Piccadilly advertisers.

Read: ‘Campaigns: did you see these inspiring ads in London? Piccadilly turns yellow’

Treehouse on Southbank from Virgin Holidays

It’s not what you’d expect on a cold winter commute but that’s what made this authentic treehouse experience work so well. The South African styled treehouse appeared by the Thames at Southbank, created by M&C Saatchi Experience as part of Virgin Holidays ‘Dream Bigger’ marketing campaign. The treehouse was open for passers-by to visit during January, with lucky competition winners getting to stay the night.  Did you spot it?

Virgin Holidays Treehouse in London

This time lapse video show the extraordinary effort that went into constructing the treehouse.

Daily Mail news video: Time lapse shows the creation of Virgin's luxury treehouse

Westminster tube station renamed Webminster

In a move that’s had a fair share of criticism, Amazon took over Westminster tube station on 12 January for a day, renaming the station Webminster and featuring poster ads for a week. The move was designed to raise awareness of the new Amazon Web Services (AWS) centre in London offering cloud computing services. With a reported £390,000 paid to Tfl, the PR ploy was staged by Exterion Media, together with AWS and TfL.

For the full story see the Reuters report: MPs criticise Amazon.com's 'Webminster' tube ad campaign

It might be controversial but the station takeover has generated a great deal of attention for Amazon’s London cloud service. 

Heinz sites emergency soup across the capital

This is the peak season for soup sales. As the temperature plummets, consumers seek out the warmth and comfort of a bowl of soup. Heinz has located a series of red emergency boxes around the capital with the familiar message “In case of emergency break glass”.  Created with agency Golin, the PR stunt encourages Londoners to help themselves to a tin of tomato soup to fend off the cold. With widespread media coverage inevitable, it’s an amusing way to keep the brand front of mind.

Fitness First makes London-wide offer

During the recent strikes, gym company Fitness First offered a friendly haven for hard-pressed commuters in the capital. By showing their Oyster card, London travellers could make free use of the shower and gym facilities at over 40 centres in London. It’s not the first time that the brand has responded to a travel crisis facing Londoners. In 2015, the brand opened its door to commuters affected by tube strikes with the message that despite the fact the trains had stopped, there was no reason for Londoners to miss their workouts as part of its #FFKeepMoving message. This is a great example of agile marketing, with an on-brand response to an event that provides real value to potential customers and racks up the positive PR coverage.