The brief: To make consumers more aware of the Design Indaba brand and its core belief that through creativity comes upliftment. To convince South Africans that by thinking creatively, we can create a brighter future. And to encourage people to book for the Design Indaba Expo – an annual showcase of South African creativity and design.

Our solution: Imagine a future where creative thinking has created mass consumer products that actually help shape our world in a positive way, rather than destroy it. We wanted to make these products and their benefits seem real. We created an innovative fictitious company, DIXIV (Design Indaba 14). We conceptualised a range of products for it - like laundry balls that require neither water nor electricity to clean your clothes, or a trash can that converts trash into fuel blocks. And we advertised these products and their benefits as if they really existed.

It was the most talked about campaign Design Indaba’s ever run. The campaign lead up to Expo generated so much hype, we saw a 30% increase in exhibitors on previous years. Hundreds of people visited our classifieds’ pages. Consumers phoned the client, wanting to purchase fictional products. Expo visitors tweeted and blogged so enthusiastically, attendance tripled on day two.

Our stand was accessible to 38,000 people and crowds surrounded it at any given time. During the campaign period, website hits increased 207% compared with the same period of the previous year. We achieved a 12% Expo visitor increase on last year’s figures.

All media communication was used as if our fictitious company and its products actually existed.

We launched using traditional broad-reach media such as TV and magazines for high visibility. We used newspaper advertorials to add credibility to the products and even advertised our products as second-hand, free on online classifieds sites.

All media resolved in a call to action to visit a URL and sign up for a product of the future. At the website we explained the products didn’t exist, but through creative thinking they could become a reality. And finally at the Expo, we turned a conventional stand, which could have sold everyday items, into a store of the future. An interactive experience using augmented reality, where children and adults could physically engage with our future products and see their benefits.