We took the CLA Shooting Brake’s slogan “Designed for Urban Hunting” literally to create a real-life “urban scavenger hunt”. Our goal was to escalate the game progressively as time went on: online quizzes at first, followed by the game slowly beginning to affect the everyday real lives of the participants. The ultimate goal of the urban hunt was kept secret to keep interest high among users at all times. Through quizzes and geocaching challenges, the best players were selected based on their performance and their online influence. The mysterious nature of the game would make it a topic of online conversation, and the players would act as online multipliers. In the course of a final real-life scavenger hunt in an Austrian city the winner would be crowned – they would receive the CLA Shooting Brake for 99 days.

@SecretOf99 consisted of three phases. In phase one, users following the account would receive a puzzle via direct message (“DM”). They would then DM the solution to the puzzle in order to receive the next puzzle, continuing to solve puzzles and receiving new ones, automated by a proprietary Twitter bot.

The best players moved on to phase two, in which they used Twitter login to access a proprietary map of Austria with secret locations marked on it. A Secret of 99 logo with an associated code was hidden on-site at each secret location; players had to DM the associated code.

Phase three had the top three players compete in a real-life urban scavenger hunt. Throughout the day, they were tasked with collecting letters (of the alphabet) to work out the solution to the final puzzle: The first player to tweet #CLAShootingBrake was the winner.

In a campaign lasting 48 days, almost 430,000 Tweet impressions were generated. The account had an average interaction rate of 5.4% and top interaction rates at times exceeding 10%. These results were quite impressive. @SecretOf99 started with zero followers and grew up to more than 1,300 participants—more than expected. Also—and this is crucial for a successful branding campaign—#SecretOf99 was a trending topic on Twitter for almost the entire day of the finale. In addition, @SecretOf99 was one of Austria’s first Twitter-only campaigns, making it unique and innovative.