We started with just 30 influential film bloggers from a variety of countries, reflecting d’Azur’s global renown. Our hero’s name would be dropped into the same sentence as Brad Pitt. His behaviour would appear on a list of “Ten Wildest Cannes Moments”. We were ready for the Googling with our search optimisation, and we directed queries to a Facebook fan site and a fake Wikipedia page.And then he disappeared. “Where’s Jacques?” our bloggers began asking. Fake news items on film and lifestyle sites reported how he had gone missing. Tributes and heartfelt videos from close friends and old Cannes accomplices appeared on YouTube and on industry blogs. We placed many of them as video pre-rolls.

Even the UK film bible Empire magazine ran an official obituary of d’Azur.

Don’t believe Jacques d’Azur exists? Google him. You’ll get at least 2.5 million results. Over 13 million people read a blog about him. Over 6 million watched a video. Each blog post generated an average of 20 different online conversations on the blogger’s site, reaching a community of over 2,700 people per post.Brand consideration rose 7 per cent and quality perception jumped 8 per cent.The response to the Stella Artois competition to take d’Azur’s coveted spot at Cannes was simply overwhelming. More than 100,000 people wanted to be Jacques d’Azur.