We wanted to increase festival site visits. We wanted to connect individuals to relevant comedians. We wanted to get the festival back in the news and across social networks.Based on the universal insight, ‘how soon is too soon to joke about something?’ we created toosoon – a remarkable search engine that could accurately predict when any topic was too soon to joke about.After five searches the site would match your specific topics to relevant comedians and shows in the festival. From there you could simply click through and buy tickets.

Using your search term, toosoon sampled the tone of millions of online conversations. If public sentiment was mostly positive, the topic got an ALL CLEAR. If public sentiment was mostly negative, it got a TOO SOON.If the topic was TOO SOON, the search engine then estimated a time and date the result would change. After five searches, your search terms were matched to an upcoming Festival show. Users could simply click through to book tickets there and then. We even made a handy mobile version so people could avoid social blunders and buy tickets on the go. The search engine was launched to the public via the Comedy Festival’s online database. Instantly getting the festival much needed conversation and media attention.

As the search engine was positioned as a serious innovation, the public flocked to test it.Toosoon received 20,000 searches in its first week.Users spent an average of 4 minutes per visit - twice the previous festival site’s engagement time.Festival site visits jumped 30%.The Comedy Festival experienced a record year of ticket sales in 2012.

Toosoon received over 20 times its initial investment in earned media.