Target Atrium Candy Cane November 2015 Instore Excellence Award “How’d They Do That?”

Insights: Instead of appealing to a consumer and looking for insights to deliver on, we had to devise a solution to execute a concept for our largest customer, in a scale we had not ever accomplished before, to provide, on time and securely the largest physical project Great Northern Twin Cities had ever done. We were to execute on the retail atrium, outside Target’s Downtown Minneapolis Store at its Headquarters. We were to come up with something creative but at the same time be sensitive to their budget. This would be the opportunity for Great Northern Corporation to demonstrate what we can really do for Target.

After a general concept was arrived upon, we were given the creative below to execute by Target.

We explored multiple options to bring an “outside the box” idea including completely corrugated/paper, plastic, polystyrene, metal, tension fabric options. We also invested in a trial to demonstrate to Target how serious we were about taking this to the next level. Using advanced projection technologies, we proposed to Target a virtual winter night sky as opposed to static imagery. Sadly, due to costs, this option was not selected. (see video below).

The structural designer developed a full scale model of the Atrium which allowed the creative stakeholders the ability to approve placement and scale before manufacturing and install commenced.

With the focus now turned to the Candy Cane we landed on an engineering concept of utilizing a combination aluminum frame with PETG panels with vacuum formed pieces to create the “J” of the Candy Cane. This was all wrapped in a custom created tension fabric sleeve. The Candy Cane would measure 26’ long, weigh almost 400lbs and have a diameter of almost 4’. We had approximately 3 weeks to build and 3 nights of install to make the Candy Cane a reality. The complimentary pieces were made out of corrugated, ½” foam core and were holographic foiled and printed digitally utilizing white inks to block the holographic foil from areas that didn’t reflect.

The install took three full nights as this is a public retail space, it had to be completed after hours. The first night was spent by the rigging company laying out the wires to match the layout provided by GNC to ensure the placement of the Candy Cane and corresponding parts would mimic the layout as approved through the scale model. The second night included the use of a 60’ tall articulating crane to position the Candy Cane on the support structure. The final night was spent hanging the ancillary figures and parts.