Cannes Lions
TABASCO, Kiev / CARTOON NETWORK / 2011
Overview
Entries
Credits
Description
Viasat is a leading paid satellite TV operator which started broadcasting a Cartoon Network Channel.Our agency was asked to come up with ideas within a budget of just $5K.We knew that with such a low budget the only thing that might give us wide public attention would be an unprecedented PR campaign, a buzzed campaign.COMMUNICATION GOAL: to drive wide public awareness of the Cartoon Network launch.MARKETING GOAL: to meet subscription sales targets of Viasat in September, 2010.We decided to act as if we really had news. The main challenge was to create an event visited by journalists, to give them brilliant material to tell the country about. Our strategy was "World 1st Dogs’ Press-Conference." Instead of spokesmen we used "spokesdogs", who were talking to journalists! The Scooby Doo crew consisted of 6 real trained dogs.The "translation" was realized by the Interpreter from "dog" to "human" language – a Client’s (Viasat) representative.Results: - Media coverage: more than 1,000,000 Ukrainians. - The subscription sales plan for September, 2010 was fulfilled at 129%.
Execution
• We rented a top news agency press office in Ukraine called UNIAN (usually allocated for the President and other VIP).• The Scooby Doo crew consisted of 6 real trained dogs.The "translation" was realized by the Interpreter from "dog" to "human" language – a Client’s (Viasat) representative. The press conference started with a "live broadcast" of Scooby Doo’s press attaché in a suit and a tie, who told about the project and made excuses for Scooby’s absence.
Then the cartoon dog Scooby Doo spoke to the journalists via a pre-recorded video. Then the most interesting part started: journalists got to ask questions and the dogs, one after another, answered with barking, whining, wagging or waving paws. The Client’s interpreter translated everything to "human language". It took a full hour just to give away all the signatures requested by the journalists! And of course everyone wanted to take a photo of our celebrity dog-crew.
Outcome
The subscription sales plan for September, 2010 was fulfilled at 129%. Massive free coverage received: • 2 weeks on, Google had 6 pages in Ukrainian with unique press-conference links, photos etc.• More than 100 publications in Internet, including top news sites, the total of traffic pages with this news covered over 257,000 people in the first day of publication!• The news spilled over the borders of Ukraine to Russian-speaking Internet space, including Kazakhstan and the countries of the Baltics with millions of impressions.• A news spot in the national TV morning-show seen by many Ukrainians.• The news was placed in the most popular dailies – the summary audience in printed press made 286,400 people.• News appeared on radio (audience made 21,500) At just 5K $ and 0 media, investment we made the Cartoon Network Channel launch a real big deal!
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