The client said he would be satisfied with an increased number of calls from potential clients. We would be satisfied if he sold just one house.

The international financial crisis ignored our efforts and struck the day after our ad campaign ended.

But Russian millionaires ignored the crisis: the banner campaign generated 36,000 clicks and 20,000 site views. The number of calls increased tenfold, the number of house views increased sevenfold, and four homes were sold.

In Moscow, a nice view, fresh air, peace, and safety are luxuries unavailable at any price. Many millionaires dream of emigrating, but they have too many responsibilities to leave.

We offered a compromise. They could go home to a different country and go back to the office in Moscow in the morning: “Emigrate every night.” Our concept was based on the contrast of city and country life.Millionaires hardly ever watch television and don’t listen to the radio. They go on the Internet to read news, but we went there to show them the contrast. On the local news sites most popular among wealthy Russians, we put banner ads telling them to emigrate every night next to bad news.

Moscow has a lot of millionaires. And outside of Moscow there are a lot of suburban real-estate developments for millionaires. The number of millionaires increases every year. The number of high-end developments increases even faster. One such development is called Belgian Village, and it’s no different from its competitors - the same sort of houses, at the same prices, from $5 million to $20 million. It had nine unsold houses.

How could the developer sell them to very wealthy, very busy businessmen, when his competitors were hunting after the same ones without sparing any cost?We had to decide where to speak to millionaires so that they would hear us, and say something that they would listen to. Our task would have been too easy if our budget wasn't far less than that of our competitors.