Our goal was to give people a real, tangible experience of summer in Sun Valley—one that people could enjoy even when trapped at their desks. And from that, Skippy, the stone-skipping robot was born. Skippy allowed users to skip a real stone across a tranquil lake in Sun Valley in real time and watch the action live via a webcam. Users could adjust the aim, pitch and force of their stone before letting it fly. It was a an interactive digital experience that gave the user a piece of Sun Valley through the Web.

Our goal was to give people a real, tangible experience of summer in Sun Valley—one that people could enjoy even when trapped at their desks. And from that, Skippy, the stone-skipping robot was born. Skippy allowed users to skip a real stone across a tranquil lake in Sun Valley in real time and watch the action live via a webcam. All while discovering the wonders of a summer in Sun Valley. When Skippy went viral, we saw a 75% increase in new visits over the same time last year. We far exceeded the desired outcome. All thanks to Skippy.

During our one-week campaign, VisitSunValley.com saw a 5,000% increase in traffic. Visitors came from all 50 states, 96 countries, and every continent—2,300 stones were skipped, which was the absolute maximum possible by Skippy. There was a queue the entire time Skippy was active. Before the campaign, Sun Valley averaged 1.6 Twitter followers each day. Afterward, followers increased to 29 per day.

Skippy went viral on numerous websites, news stations, and blogs around the world. He even made it to the front page of Reddit.com. In total, we generated $2.7 million in earned media, well above our $100K goal.