Blu Dot is an award-winning designer and manufacturer of modern furniture. But awareness of the brand was limited, so, in conjunction with the first anniversary of Blu Dot’s flagship New York City store, we wanted to create a promotion that the entire city of NYC could participate in—and raise the profile of Blu Dot.

Inspired by NYC’s culture of “curb-mining” or picking up furniture from the street, we wondered what would happen if we left 25 of Blu Dot’s Real Good Chairs all over the city, free for the taking. Who will grab them? Where will they go?

Technology would encourage participation. By GPS-enabling the chairs and through social media, everyone could follow the chairs online, in real time.

So, who took the chairs? The final component to our project was a documentary that captured the entire event, revealing the chairs’ new owners and their stories. It premiered on Blu Dot’s 1st Anniversary.

The two-day experiment garnered over 136 million media impressions for Blu Dot in just two months. The idea won the hearts of editors from the New York Times Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, Dwell, Creativity magazine, and CNBC, not to mention a handful of New York scavengers who created epic blogs dedicated to their chair pursuits.All that attention helped Blu Dot’s store sales surge more than 30% the two months immediately following the promotion.

Blu Dot has always believed that good design can go anywhere. By taking the classic give-away promotion, and adding a new technological and social media twist, we captured the attention and fascination not only of resourceful New Yorkers, but also the press and online community. While only 25 lucky people ended up with a free chair, millions more were introduced to a brand called Blu Dot.