The Hijack

Background

Alfa, one of the leading telecom providers in Lebanon, had recently launched a new service named ‘Ehkineh’, or, in English, “Call me”.

True to its name, this service allows users who have run out of credit to stay in touch with friends and family by sending out a free "Please call me back" message.

Idea

There was no allocated budget for ‘Ehkineh’ so the plan was to use guerrilla tactics to generate buzz and free media coverage.

The idea was to interrupt six prime-time programs on six major Lebanese radio stations on the same day. Someone would burst in on the presenter and, because he had no credits left on his mobile phone, would hijack the airwaves to convey an important message to someone in the audience.

The team researched the presenters carefully, studying their backgrounds, their families and how they normally reacted whenever anything goes wrong. They also did dummy-runs to some of the radio stations to find out how easy or difficult it was to gain entry uninvited.

Then a script was prepared and actors briefed. Cameras were provided to each hijack group so they could film the action.

Plan B, if a radio station prevented the hijackers from getting inside, was to call in to live radio broadcasts and get the message out on air that way.

And, indeed, after the first couple of raids news spread fast and stations the agency had targeted ramped up their security.

Results

218,000 heard the stunt live on the radio.

Bloggers heard it live and tracked it on blogs.

412,000 shared the story online.

It made it to the front page of leading local newspapers and 658,000 read about it in the press.

In a country with a population of 4 million, 1,288,000 heard, read or shared the story of the stunt (Xplan Stat Ipsos)

The campaign was valued at $120,000, not bad since it actually cost $0.

2 weeks after the campaign, usage of the  ‘Ehkineh’ service was up 12.3%.

Our Thoughts

This isn’t the first media-hijack we’ve seen at Directory.Mortierbrigade got a small black boy to run on set in the middle of live TV broadcasts to drink the newsreader’s water to create buzz in Belgium – which it did. And in this instance, someone bursting in on the unsuspecting DJs would have made for brilliant radio. Certainly thousands of listeners did sit up. Many blogged and tweeted about what had happened before it was revealed as a marketing stunt. But this is one of those ideas which is great the first time, would be pretty annoying the second time and would make you serious enemies the third. As brands find new ways to reach us in new places, there’s the risk of ambient spam.

A great one-off from Bechara Mouzanar’s bright young things.