Wreck a Car to Launch a Product

What's the play

Launch a product with a physical stunt built to be filmed, not a plain billboard nobody photographs. Ramp painted a wallscape in NYC, hung vinyl billboards, swung a branded wrecking ball, and smashed a car. The whole play was built to be posted on LinkedIn, X, and Instagram.

What was the alternative?

A polished launch video and a standard billboard buy that nobody films.

Results / what moved

Ramp saw 59% higher LinkedIn engagement than its past campaigns and 73% higher click-through. The stunt pulled 67,000+ video views and 200+ organic reshares across LinkedIn, X, and Instagram, 3x the views of its best prior campaign. It also kicked off a wave of word-of-mouth that framed the brand as one willing to do something weird.

Would you run it again?

Yes. The stunt video carried top-of-funnel awareness while the product video handled direct response, so Ramp ran both and let each do its job.

Steps

1. 1

   Anchor it to a real launch

   Tie the stunt to a product moment that matters. Ramp built this around the Treasury launch, so the noise had a reason to exist instead of being a stunt for its own sake.

2. 2

   Design for the phone, not the corner

   Build set pieces that look unreal on a phone screen. A branded wrecking ball, a crashed car, and a painted wallscape give people something they can't help but film.

3. 3

   Lock vendors and permits early

   Map out every vendor, permit, and timeline before you commit. This is the part that quietly kills these campaigns, so put one person in charge of keeping it all cohesive.

4. 4

   Treat content as the deliverable

   Put a crew on capturing the spectacle from day one. The physical placement is the bait. The footage is the actual product.

5. 5

   Cut two videos

   Make a stunt video for awareness and a product-focused video for direct response. Don't ask one cut to do both jobs.

6. 6

   Push it organic across channels

   Post to LinkedIn, X, and Instagram and let the reshares compound. The spectacle does the heavy lifting once people start sharing it themselves.

Notes

The ugly part is the logistics. Multiple vendors, permits, and timelines all have to line up or the whole thing falls apart, so someone needs to own the planning end to end. Plan the social capture before you build anything physical, because a spectacle nobody films well is just a destroyed car on a street. And don't expect one asset to carry everything. The stunt video earns attention, the product video earns clicks.

Tools & resources used

Onescreen