The Campaign

On 22 January 2010 Auckland woke up to see a traffic cone on the top of the sky tower. The tallest building in the southern hemisphere. No one knew how it got there. No one. The conversation that followed helped launch the ‘V’ Energy Pocket Rocket and the TV component rated the most distinctive and most interesting ad ever in New Zealand as recorded by Milward Brown. The campaign has helped V outsell Coke in convenience stores. The only place in the world where Coke is outsold by an energy drink.

Success of the Campaign

The debate about who did it, how we did it, and if we actually did it all helped create 89% awareness of V’s new product in its first three months. V Pocket Rocket gained 51% share of the energy shot market. The TV component measured as the most ‘distinctive’ and ‘interesting’ ad on record for Millward Brown in New Zealand. And total V sales grew 32%. The ‘was it real’ or ‘was it fake?’ conversation continues to this day.

Describe how the campaign/entry was launched and executed across each channel in the order of implementation.

To seed the campaign, orange road cones started appearing in unusual places all over Auckland. Radio DJ’s started talking about them and people called in with their own sightings. Breakfast TV reported a multi-coning of Watchman’s Island beneath the Auckland Harbour Bridge. The question everyone was asking was “who’s behind them?” Then after two weeks people woke up to see a road cone on the top of the sky tower – the tallest building in the southern hemisphere. The media (including prime time news) and twitter were asking how on earth it got there. The rumours spun into overdrive. Later that day, a link to a YouTube clip spread around New Zealand’s inboxes showing a guy with a V Green Rocket Pack coning the tower and confirming ‘V’ were behind it. But the conversation didn’t stop there. The debate about whether or not the Rocket Pack coning was real or fake continued on.