London’s River Thames becomes the stage for Reboot Online’s latest marketing stunt

Award-winning organic search agency Reboot Online has turned a boat moored outside London’s Old Billingsgate into an unexpected advertising platform, bringing its focus on brand visibility to the waterfront.

With Spotlight by Semrush taking place at the venue on Tuesday 13 October, Reboot wanted to create something that would get the agency noticed by the marketers attending and give them a reason to share it beyond the event.

The agency considered a range of ideas, from portable billboards and activations outside the venue to hiring a coffee van and even transporting attendees to the conference by rickshaw. But while walking around the area surrounding the venue, the team spotted an opportunity hiding in plain sight. A boat moored directly opposite the entrance to Old Billingsgate.

Rather than buying conventional advertising space, Reboot approached the boat company and explored how the vessel could become part of the campaign. The team then developed a banner designed to catch the attention of marketers arriving at the conference, where brand and AI visibility will be key topics of conversation.

The boat is positioned directly opposite the venue, with views towards The Shard, Tower of London and Tower Bridge, putting the activation directly into the eyeline of conference attendees as they arrive. The idea reflects Reboot Online’s wider approach to marketing; looking beyond conventional channels and finding creative ways to reach the right audience.

The activation also caught Spotlight’s attention. Responding on LinkedIn, the event’s account said: “We said ‘win visibility everywhere’ and you took that to the Thames 👏 Great to have the Reboot crew making waves at Spotlight!”

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As a digital agency, Reboot typically focuses on building brand visibility online, but its team wanted to demonstrate that guerrilla marketing and unconventional thinking don’t have to belong exclusively to consumer brands or big-budget campaigns.

Hannah Packham, Social Media Manager at Reboot, said:

“We wanted to create something people would naturally stop, photograph and talk about. At an event where everyone is competing for attention, putting a 31-foot Reboot banner on a boat directly outside the venue felt like a way to get in front of our target audience.

Some of the best marketing ideas start with noticing something others have walked past. The boat gave us a chance to turn an everyday part of the waterfront into something people would stop, photograph and share.”

Zoë Blogg, Managing Director at Organic Search agency Reboot, says:

“Our mission is to get our clients found online, in front of the right audiences. That means always looking for opportunities and thinking creatively about how to get them noticed. We brought that same thinking to our own brand at Spotlight.

“When our Marketing team spotted the boat outside Old Billingsgate, we immediately saw the potential. As an independent agency, we can make decisions quickly and get a good idea moving while the opportunity is there.

‘Search has entered uncharted waters’ connects what’s happening in our industry with something people can stop and look at. Hopefully, it gives them a smile too. We wanted to create something people would photograph, share and talk about, taking Reboot’s visibility beyond the waterfront.”

Reboot Online team members Hannah Peckham, Social Media Manager, and Betty Rackham, Growth Executive, will be attending Spotlight by Semrush in branded Reboot T-shirts, with Growth Director Sean Guy also in the area. The team will be joining more than 1,000 marketers attending the conference, which focuses on the changing landscape of search and AI.

The boat and banner is live around the conference on Tuesday 13 October.