Finnish radio station Radio Helsinki and creative digital agency Perfect Fools came up with a shocking campaign to stop founder of hasan & partners and his CEO from lying in a series of radio interviews.
Electric Shock Banner from hasan & partners on Vimeo.
Case study summary
• Merged European agencies created publicity stunt to promote new partnership
• Banner displayed live radio show featuring leaders of both agencies
• Viewers could ‘shock’ the execs via the banner if they said something stupid
• Radio Helsinki got the highest ever listener engagement
The challenge
Helsinki-based advertising agency hasan & partners acquired 51% of a digital agency Perfect Fools in Stockholm and Amsterdam. It was important for both agencies to have as much publicity as possible for the new partnership.
The solution
Along with the standard PR campaign, both the CEO and the Chairman of hasan & partners were invited to Radio Helsinki, the well-known Finnish pop culture radio station, for an interview about the new acquisition.
While agency mergers are often communicated with a lot crap about "world domination”, they decided to let the listening audience participate in the merger news in a quite unusual way.
They were invited to engage with the show via a Web banner on which they could give an electric shock to either or both agency leaders whenever they said something stupid.
The SHOCK BANNER enabled each listener to give an electric shock by simply clicking the image on the banner’s image of the hasan & partners leader of their choice. The click instantly resulted as an electric shock on the arm of the chosen interviewee in the studio. Our idea was to create something both fresh and engaging that would create a buzz – and also hint at our creative range.
The results
Radio Helsinki got the highest ever listener engagement – and both Eka Ruola and Ami Hasan received a staggering number of electric shocks. The banner was also a huge PR success. For example, The Guardian and Agency Spy, as well as Marketing & Advertising magazine in Finland wrote about the event.
