The Brief

We were assigned by the Association of Accredited Advertising Agents of Malaysia to create the “Call for Entries” campaign to alert creatives at advertising agencies in Kuala Lumpur of the upcoming 2012 Malaysian Kancil Awards submission period.

Describe how the promotion developed from concept to implementation

Every creative dreams of being recognised by famous ECDs. We tapped into this insight, and created a campaign revolving around a microsite that garnered information for prank calls. With operators disguised as PAs to popular ECDs, victims were led to believe that they’re being offered the dream job, until we revealed our message: “Stop dreaming. Prove your prowess first at the 2012 Kancil Awards”. Victims were then directed to our microsite, where they could listen to the calls, nominate friends to be pranked and most importantly, submit their work. We spent 3 days calling the victims harvested from the microsite.

Describe the success of the promotion with both client and consumer including some quantifiable results

We started by making 18 prank calls on day one. By the end of that day, our victims had collectively input 40 new names into our database. This went on for 3 days, but by then, the word was already out. Such was the buzz surrounding the campaign that we had to shut down the input section of the microsite, and stop the prank calling on the fourth day – much sooner than we expected. Ultimately, in just four days, we collected 152 names of potential victims from 37 agencies, successfully pranked 68 and recorded over 1,000 site visits and counting.

Explain why the method of promotion was most relevant to the product or service

Call for Entry work usually takes the form of posters and other traditional collateral. There is usually very little actual engagement involved. We wanted to create an interactive method of speaking directly to the people for whom the message was meant. By directly involving our target audience as assets in the creation of the campaign, we felt we had a good chance of grabbing and keeping their attention. What’s more, beyond the pranks, our campaign was a true-to-life demonstration of real possibilities and outcome of doing well at the Kancil Awards.