6 things you can miss while reading the newspaper
Newspapers
Issue 26 | March 2013
Agency
Duval Guillaume Modem
Creative Team
Creative Directors: Geoffrey Hantson, Katrien Bottez Art Director: Ad van Ongeval Copywriter: Dieter De Ridder
Production Team
Production Company: Poetry in Motion Agency Producer: Marc Van Buggenhout Executive Producer: Hans Buysse Producer: Brechje Depourcq Director: Dagmar Duportail
Other Credits
Account Director: Liene Donckers Account Manager: Bart Verschueren
Date
December 2012
Background
In this digital era, advertisers are less and less inclined to use newspapers even though research shows that newspaper advertising is still an effective way of reaching people.
Newspaperswork is the marketing platform for all Belgian newspaper publishers. They wanted a B2B campaign to reconnect with both advertisers and media agencies by showing that newspapers are an attractive and effective advertising medium.
Idea
On the day that the Advertiser Personality of the Year award was made, the three shortlisted candidates, three of the top clients in Belgium, were provided with a chauffeur-driven limousine to get them to work. This gave them the time first thing in the morning to look at the newspaper in peace.
During their journey to work, the three individuals were so engrossed in their newspapers they failed to notice the various distractions that were laid on for them such as the native American on a motorbike, the fact that their chauffeur wore no trousers – and so on.
Results
All three clients kept reading the paper during the whole ride and not one of them noticed any of the distractions.
There were 5,000 unique visitors to newspaperswork.be and after two weeks there had been over 200,000 views on YouTube.
The stunt was the talk of the town within the Belgian advertising and marketing communities.
Our Thoughts
There is an irony here that it took an online video to demonstrate more effectively, perhaps, than any press ad could the power of the press. Yet there is also bravery, with a client choosing to use a viral video rather than his/her own medium to prove how engrossing a good read can be.
In most agencies, a B2B brief like this would have wound up as print advertising in the trade press. Not at Duval Guillaume, though. This agency has been the No.1 agency in Belgium since The Big Won rankings first started in 2007 and the reason for that is because whatever the task they do try to be innovative as well as interesting.