A Robot Rolls into an Apple Store
No guerrilla marketing stunt set the bar higher than
the one in Sydney in 2016, when a telepresence
robot took its place in line to buy an iPhone 6s.
The robot displayed the cheerful face of a
woman named Lucy Kelly, the marketing manager
of a small media company, who controlled the
robot from her home, sometimes in her pajamas
over breakfast. She chatted with others in line,
posed for selfies, and granted interviews for sto-
ries that reached millions worldwide.
Kelly’s approach was more than a clever
and futuristic solution to the tedium of a long
wait. Just her presence, or rather her telepres-
ence, reaped exposure for Apple; for Double
Robotics, the company that made the machine;
and — especially — for Kelly’s employer, Atomic
212, which has gone on to win nearly 40 advertis-
ing and marketing awards.
“There was one incident where two journal-
ists began fighting to get in front of Lucy; it was
bizarre,” said Jason Dooris, Atomic 212’s creative
director. “We figured the campaign reached some-
thing like 123 million people in the first 48 hours.”
Atomic 212’s campaign may have written a
new page in the playbook for guerrilla marketing,
demonstrating how a company with a limited
budget can piggyback on a big company’s major
event to promote its own brand. Other companies
big and small often take advantage of Apple’s
product rollouts and store openings to promote
goods and services.
Apple had no advance notice about the stunt,
but a day after the robot’s appearance, the store
saw the value in the publicity (after all, the robot
used an iPad) and allowed Lucy inside to recharge
her batteries.
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Kelly waited in the rain with the rest of the early
iPhone 6s purchasers without worrying about
catching cold. PHOTO: Atomic 212
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