News

The Kraken Rum unveils Leicester Square installation

06 June 2024 By Louis Thomas

Rum brand The Kraken has unveiled a new installation which depicts a mythical sea monster bursting from the ground in London’s Leicester Square.

The 25 feet high tentacle is wrapped around a classic red telephone box, with an “innocent civilian hostage” precariously dangling from it.

The installation has been complemented by a social media campaign on the brand’s Instagram account, @krakenrumuk, which shared a series faked news bulletins showing the beast from the deep’s rampage across other parts of the UK, with computer generated imagery showing its attacks on Brighton Pier, Birmingham’s Bull Ring, and The Duke of Wellington statue in Glasgow. With the latter, in homage to the Glaswegian tradition of placing a traffic cone atop the head of the Iron Duke, the Kraken has done just the same.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kraken Rum UK (@krakenrumuk)

As part of the promotional push for the brand, visitors to Leicester Square are encouraged to take photos, with the flash on, of the tentacle because, as a press release put it: “The story goes that the only way to repel the darkness of The Kraken is for an army of brave souls to snap The Beast with their camera flash, to deny it the darkness it craves”.

Those who do take a flash photo of the installation will be handed a black envelope containing a voucher entitling them to two-for-one Kraken Perfect Storm cocktails at the All Bar One in Leicester Square.

The Kraken’s recent marketing campaigns have strongly-leaned into the horror genre, with a pop-up bar for Halloween last year charging guests based on their heart rate.

Fugitive tycoon Vijay Mallya challenges Indian authorities over £700m asset seizures

Julian Cox on raising the bar at 22 Bishopsgate