Yellow Pages books have lost their relevance in the new digital age. They need to move Yellow users and Yellow advertisers onto Yellow digital platforms. This includes Yellow’s local directory books.So we were asked to launch their new offering: yellowlocal.co.nz, 205 individual neighbourhood websites for Auckland City.

Our strategy was to make these community websites, designed for local businesses, organisations and residents, seem genuinely local. We needed a truly localised campaign. We went into Auckland neighbourhoods and collected hundreds of local messages of the kind you’d expect to find on the websites, and then we used them as ads for Yellow Local. Suddenly your neighbourhood mechanic was a celebrity up on his local billboard. Or the girl next door was advertising her baby-sitting service on local TV. Many of the messages were so local, they’d only be understood if you were from that particular neighbourhood.

These new Yellow websites would be built on consumer/neighbourhood generated content. They’d allow local businesses to advertise, local groups to post messages, and consumers to review and recommend, or find, local businesses. In short they’d allow locals to talk to locals.We wanted an ad campaign to encourage and stimulate that behaviour from the get go. So we went into Auckland neighbourhoods and collected hundreds of local messages of the kind you’d expect to find on the websites, and then used them as ads for Yellow Local.Suddenly your neighbourhood mechanic was a celebrity up on his local billboard, or the girl next door was advertising her baby-sitting service on local TV. Many of the messages were so local, they’d only be understood if you were from that particular neighbourhood.Each of the more than 300 individual executions whether on TV, billboard, press or web, directed consumers to the website.

This campaign gave Aucklanders a real sense of what Yellow’s new websites were about. Along the way we achieved some nice and unexpected results. These included saving a flagging restaurant on the brink of bankruptcy. We helped Paris the dog get a crucial hip operation. And we found a very short salsa dancer a short dancing partner. But more importantly for the client, we achieved 110% more online visitors than their target. (Oh, and we blindsided a budding competitor by over-whelming their own launch campaign.)