90 Minutes of Air Conditioning

About the Work Midea, an Asian appliance brand, was virtually unknown to the US market. To raise the profile of the brand in the States, we sought to create a foothold in the biggest and most influential market in the country—New York City—during one of the hottest summers on record. Every summer, New Yorkers are notorious for going to ANY movie, just for the air conditioning. So to introduce locals to Midea’s new U-Shaped Air Conditioner, a unit perfectly designed for city apartments, Midea made a movie that we knew would lure New Yorkers into theaters to escape the heat: 90 MINUTES OF AIR CONDITIONING. Literally. A feature film done with just one epic shot of the Midea U blowing for 90 minutes in a cold Manhattan movie theater. And nothing more. The fact that the film was deliberately unengaging and designed to be talked over or napped through just pushed the insight even further—the audience came for the AC, not the movie. We promoted it like any other summer film. We took over the movie theater marquee. We invited local film critics and press to attend the premiere and held several more showings at NYC theaters over the course of the summer. We captured the event and audience reactions and spread it to millions of New Yorkers on social media. One critic dubbed the movie “The Coolest Film of the Summer.” Another called it “The Longest Product Placement Ever.” A popular film publication said 90 MINUTES OF AIR CONDITIONING was the sequel to Andy Warhol’s “Empire” film. And after 440M earned impressions, the toughest critics, New Yorkers themselves, let us know how they felt. By the end of the summer, Midea had completely sold out of the Midea U AC inventory.