what happens when your co-founder is a west end actor with a chaotic idea and zero fear of museum security?
you end up smuggling a fake mona lisa into the national gallery in broad daylight. obviously.
because at swypes, we’re not just about staying fresh - we’re about making fresh noise. and this time, that meant turning heads in one of london’s most iconic art galleries.
from renaissance to rogue.
last week, our co-founder travis kerry (yes, the one with great cheekbones and questionable judgment) rolled up to the national gallery with a tote bag, a fake mona lisa painting, and the riskiest plan we’ve said yes to yet.
da vinci. van gogh. rembrandt. botticelli. all proudly on the walls. and then, next to them? a fresh-faced lisa rocking the highly sought-after 'fresh vibes only' t-shirt...courtesy of swypes.
armed with nerves, a rogue printout, and museum staff watching his every move, travis scoped the room and waited for his moment.
he found it. he stuck it. and the people loved it.
centuries of art… but all eyes were on ours.
despite being pulled aside, travis made it through with his contemporary spin on the louvre look.
“surrounded by security watching my every single move, we had a task on our hands,” trav said. classic.
after doing laps around the halls waiting for the perfect window, he finally went for it - and slapped swypes’ very own mona lisa on the wall.
tourists were literally ignoring the renaissance greats to snap a pic of her new ‘fresh vibes only’ t-shirt.
it was a chaos-core moment of guerrilla marketing...and people were obsessed. nearly 100,000 watched it back on tiktok, meaning we didn’t just get on the walls of a london museum… we got on the feeds of future swypers around the world.
@weareswypes We nearly went to prison for this…😅 Perhaps our riskiest video yet!! 👀💦 #monalisa ♬ original sound - Swypes
was this a high-budget campaign? no.
did it require 3 weeks of strategy, 15 team calls, and a brand deck? also no.
it was just a tote bag, a piece of paper, and some audacity.
sometimes the best ideas are the ones that make you say:
“wait...can we actually do that?”
and at swypes, the answer is usually yes.
stay fresh. stay bold. and maybe don’t tell the national gallery it was us.
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