If you live in Chicago, Illinois, next month (June) a giant stroller, strong enough to cradle a 400-pound baby may be coming to a park near you. Sadly for sleep-deprived parents, it’s not the first in a new product line. It’s a marketing stunt, dreamt up by advertising agency FCB (Foote, Cone & Belding) for baby product manufacturer, Kolcraft.
Normally you wouldn’t want your customers to feel infantilized, but when FCB approached Kolcraft with the concept of a ginormous pram, “We loved it,” said Tom Koltun, Kolcraft’s president. Koltun has not yet test-ridden the prototype, but promises that, “once it’s back in the office I will eventually go for a ride.”
The stroller is not collapsable, not that it would fit in the trunk of anyone’s car. It’s 7 1/2-feet tall, 4-feet wide and weighs 350 pounds (750 if you add a 400-lb baby.) It was born from a whiteboard brainstorm at FCB, an agency that boasts of an in-house team of comedy writers and also a poet capable of delivering a manifesto should your company need one.
If you don’t follow advertising and have never heard of FCB, it is the oldest agency in Chicago. Started in 1873, its early clients included Kotex and Palmolive. Their campaigns have included memorable slogans like ”RAID kills bugs dead.”
Being 143 years old doesn’t stop the agency from having a juvenile sense of humor. Here is one of their hilarious public service announcements on a very serious topic: (If you’re at work, headphones are a good idea.)