FOCUS-CAMPUS Webshredder
FOCUS Magazin Verlag GmbH
Issue 6 | July 2008
Agency
OgilvyInteractive / OgilvyOne Frankfurt
Creative Team
Petra Berghäuser;Dr. Ulf Schmidt;Michael Kutschinski;Uwe Jakob;Melanie Bott;Isabel Rathgeber
Production Team
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Other Credits
Meik-Oliver Vogler - Client Manager;Lenny Ghersi - Project Manager
Date
November 2007
Background
We live in an environment where methods of communication are becoming increasingly complex and people’s information sources are dominated by blogs, Wikipedia and online forums. However, even Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, discourages people from using such sites to study for exams, as some details can be inaccurate. FOCUS-CAMPUS, a weekly student magazine, wanted to call students’ attention to the quality of its journalism (its key advantage over blogs and the like) in a playful, attention-grabbing and unconventional way.
Idea
Their solution was the Webshredder website (see www.schredderfieber.de/eng/ for the English version). This gave users the opportunity to vent their anger on bad websites by 'shredding' them. By entering their hated URL, visitors to the site could watch it being slashed to pieces in front of their very eyes. The ‘remains’ could then be emailed to colleagues, fellow-students and friends, or even the creator of the ‘shredded’ site as a playful form of criticism, thereby seeding the site to another audience of users.
Results
Page visits increased to 3,000 within a week of the launch, with many of the users returning for repeat visits.
Target Audience
Young people and college students between the ages of 15 and 29.
Our Thoughts
I love the technological gismo that allows you to shred any website around. And I like the idea of sharing this novelty with your friends. But I'm struggling to tie this back to the product being sold and wonder if this is like so much digital work: a novelty/gimmick/game in search of a proposition. SH