Media folk take over Auckland as Adshel Rally makes a welcome return

It’s not every day you get to test yourself on a Segway, wax your bum crack, jump off the Sky Tower, drive maniacally around Auckland searching for bus shelters, dress up as an inmate outside a prison, almost run over one of your co-workers, ride a mechanical bull and do tequila shots at 3pm. But that’s basically what around 80 industry folk had to do last Thursday as part of the Adshel Rally. And, as you can probably see in these pictures, they appeared to love every minute of it.

18 rather competitive teams of four turned up, with staff from most of the major media agencies indulging in what could be likened to an Auckland-based version of The Amazing Race (or an activity-filled stag do without quite as much binge drinking) that took contestants to seven Adshel Create shelters dotted around the city.

“The Adshel Rally, a signature Adshel event, aims to demonstrate to media buyers how powerful out-of-home advertising can be in engaging audiences with brands,” says Adshel sales manager Nick Vile. “We were truly impressed by their enthusiastic involvement in the Auckland event.”

Teams had to complete set challenges at each of the shelters and in the end OMD Auckland was given the first prize and the golden gnome at Snapdragon after completing them all in the ridiculously fast time of just over two hours (rumours of cheating are rife; the OMD team denies everything).

The event, which Adshel also runs in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, was reinstated in New Zealand after a six year hiatus and, in a way, the fact that it’s back up and running is a good indication that some confidence has started to return to the market.

So, well done Adshellers. It was a helluva lot of fun, it was particularly well-organised, it was an effective way to show off the creative ways to use outdoor media and it was a novel way to grease up the clients. Roll on next year.