Peter Harper is a publishing industry veteran, with a career that started in 1989 and includes a 15-year stint with Time Inc.’s book distribution division. Now, thanks to his most recent gig, his resume includes twerking and 30-foot fingernails. As a senior vice president at Guinness World Records, Harper, 50, heads up the team that handles the company’s brand activations and marketing events, which include stunts like the “world’s largest tire track image” and “the most people using mouthwash simultaneously.”
For example, when Visa wanted to demonstrate the ease of its new checkout app during the 2015 Super Bowl, the credit card company reached out to Harper and Guinness. The result: Wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. created and broke a record by snagging 33 one-handed catches in one minute at the game’s Fan Fest in Scottsdale, Arizona. Illustrating how Guinness can work within (or even spark) a brand’s campaign, the sponsored attempt mirrored Visa’s season- long commercial, which featured Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald using Visa Checkout on his mobile phone while fielding passes from top quarterbacks.
Guinness World Records, the almanac of random, quirky stats that started it all in 1955, actually began as its own sort of promotional material for the Guinness brewery, aimed at pub patrons. Now, in addition to the book, the London-based publishing company—which celebrated its 60th anniversary last year—has leveraged its records into a growing event business.
In the United States, Guinness handles 135 events a year for clients ranging from top-name ad agencies and brands to small nonprofits and schools. Harper says they are usually looking to celebrate milestones and anniversaries, launch new products, engage fans and consumers, and raise brand awareness, adding that Guinness’s “wide-ranging reach is part of the appeal” to this type of event marketing. Working with clients, Guinness account managers will brainstorm and plan a record attempt, arranging for an adjudicator to be on site to certify the achievement, as well as offering licensing agreements to use the Guinness trademark. But it’s the client’s responsibility to execute the event—and follow the rules. For those looking to set a new record, Harper says the attempt needs to be global, standardizable, measurable, and verifiable, meaning “no cutest baby contests."
The company has also begun teaming up with shopping malls and conferences to organize live record-breaking events called GWR Live. For example, at Minecon 2015—a Minecraft conference in London—gamers took part in hourly record attempts and achieved eight new titles on the spot.
In terms of the future of the business, Harper says, “as long as humans have imagination, we’ll never run out of records.”
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