Because the innovative use of data was the essential technical part of the idea, all outcome was data driven: During the promotion period, countless guitar players tried to master the solo. Because those who weren’t good enough didn’t produce a measurable result within Shazam, we can only guess the numbers. What we know: Even though only very skilled guitarists could play the solo perfectly in our tests, Shazam measured 250+ successful matches. One lucky guitar mastermind got the new Les Paul for free. The rest of the first production batch was sold out, before it was even in stores. Not least because of the Paul Skill Check, the 2015 Les Paul Signature Edition is now at the top of every guitar player’s wish list.

Innovative use of data in terms of “algorithmic search within a database” was the technical mechanism at the core of our idea, and the key element facilitating the whole creative campaign.

While most creative data efforts may focus on collecting their own data or use formatted available data, we did something totally different.

Working together with Shazam, we “hacked” their “waveform fingerprinting” technology (algorithmic search within a database):

Instead of using Shazam to recognize prerecorded audio from radio or tv, we used it to set up a challenge: We placed perfectly played clean audio recordings as “master” files in the Shazam database.

Then we made users play their own guitar, producing their own “sample” audio.

Only if they played precise enough, Shazam would detect enough similarities within the fingerprint (hashes), recognize a match and reveal to the user a website with the chance to exclusively pre-order or even win the new LesPaul Björn Gelotte Signature edition.