Untouchable Covers

Background

Lürzer’s Archive is a magazine that all creatives know and love, containing the very best advertising, photography and design every two months. However, they love it a bit too much. And instead of subscribing themselves, they often resort to pinching it from someone else. Sometimes referred to as The World’s Most Stolen Magazine, Lürzer’s wanted to raise awareness about what makes it so nickable – but raise subscriptions at the same time.

Idea

The solution was ‘Untouchable Covers’, free anti-theft fake covers for every new subscriber, which turned their copy of Lürzer’s into a magazine so unpleasant, controversial or dull that no-one would want to pick it up, let alone steal it.

Fake wraparounds were made of fictional publications such as Accountman Monthly, Spreadsheet Enthusiast and Bucket Collector. These fake titles looked genuine but were strange enough to warrant a second look and then funny enough to reward repeat views. Designed by Mark Denton, the fake covers cemented the idea of Lürzer’s Archive being the world’s most stolen magazine.

Results

The covers were featured in almost every major advertising publication worldwide including Adage, Creativity Online, Creative Review, Design Week, Adweek, Campaign and hundreds of blogs. It went viral over non-advertising websites too, including over one million views on Reddit alone and even featured in Stylist magazine (of all places!)

In just over a week from launch the campaign achieved:

• 424 new subscriptions (Up 500% on the previous period)
• Over €58,000 worth of new sales
• Return on Investment: €10 for every €1 spent
• Over 50,000 unique clicks to the Lürzers Archive ‘Untouchable Covers’ subscriptions page
• Retention of lapsing subscribers up over 15%. 88% instead of 72%
• "Our most successful and beautiful campaign ever" - Michael Weinzettl, Editor, Lürzer’s Archive

Our Thoughts

Lürzer’s Archive is a competitor to Directory and we should have rejected this campaign out of hand. Instead, we’re giving Lürzer’s two pages of additional advertising reaching a couple of thousand people they haven’t reached already and I’m sitting here thinking, “Why haven’t we done something like this?”

That’s when you know an idea is both innovative and arresting, when you want to nick it because the strategy is new but makes sense and the execution is top drawer and will go viral.

What wouldn’t I give for 424 new subscriptions?!

Bravo Michael Weinzettl for seeing the need and writing a brief and bravo Ben Gough and Mark Denton for the work.