| Title | #DISCUSS |
| Brand | THE WHEELER CENTRE |
| Product / Service | THE WHEELER CENTRE |
| Category | A04. Use of Ambient Media: Small Scale |
| Entrant | CLEMENGER BBDO MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA |
| Entrant Company | CLEMENGER BBDO MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA |
| Advertising Agency | CLEMENGER BBDO MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA |
| Name | Company | Position |
|---|---|---|
| Peter Biggs | Clemenger BBDO Melbourne | Chief Executive |
| Berlin Abraham | Clemenger BBDO Melbourne | Senior Account Manager |
| Kate Little | Clemenger BBDO Melbourne | Account Manager |
| Sharon Adams | Clemenger BBDO Melbourne | Director Of Production/Studio |
| Louise Sergent | Clemenger BBDO Melbourne | Senior Digital Producer |
| Matt Gauci | Clemenger BBDO Melbourne | Print Studio Manager |
| Ben Birchall | Clemenger BBDO Melbourne | Social Director |
| Ben Keenan | Clemenger BBDO Melbourne | Interactive Creative Director |
| James Mcgrath | Clemenger BBDO Melbourne | Creative Chairman |
| Ant Keogh | Clemenger BBDO Melbourne | Executive Creative Director |
| Paul Rees/Jones | Clemenger BBDO Melbourne | Planning Director |
| Sam Mackisack | Clemenger BBDO Melbourne | Interactive Business Director |
| Nathan Rogers | Clemenger BBDO Melbourne | Senior Digital Analyst |
| Nichola Patterson | Propeller PR | Managing Director |
| Quickstrike | Quickstrike | Activation Company |
| Michael Williams | The Wheeler Centre | Director |
| Pauline O'brien | The Wheeler Centre | Head Of Marketing And Communications |
| Simon Abrahams | The Wheeler Centre | Head Of Programming |
| Tamara Zimet | The Wheeler Centre | Publicist |
| Jon Tjhia | The Wheeler Centre | Online Content Manager |
Our intention for the campaign was to get Melbourne’s home of public conversation talked about. We succeeded. Over a one week period, 5643 people created their own #discuss tweets, 100 of which were turned into Wheeler Centre branded historical plaques. The resulting tweets were shared, reaching a staggering 62% of Melbourne’s twitter users. In the physical world, we created 100 Wheeler Centre branded historical plaques that served as conversation starters and advertisements. News of the campaign generated $2,276,040 in earned media.
We wanted our media to actually spark conversation. So we turned to the place where people have a lot to say: Twitter. We asked Melbourne to throw up their topics of discussion using the #discuss hashtag in Twitter. Then, we took these comments and rapidly printed Wheeler Centre historical plaques and placed them in relevant places. Within the hour, we’d tweeted photographs of the plaques back to their surprised authors. For example, one Twitter user tweeted: “People who move into areas near existing live music venues should not be allowed to make noise complaints about said venues. #discuss” Within the hour a plaque was up outside the Empress Hotel in Melbourne’s north, a venue that had been closed down for that very reason. In seven days, Wheeler Centre plaques dotted the city and the conversations they inspired spilled out of social media and into traditional media.
Melbourne’s Wheeler Centre is a place where writers and thinkers share their ideas in front of live audiences, to rekindle the lost of art of public conversation. The only thing was, the public weren’t really talking about the Wheeler Centre. So if people wouldn’t come to the conversation, we decided to bring the conversation to them. So we created a real-time ambient outdoor campaign powered by social media, that was part New Yorker-style caption contest and part guerilla street art project. It inspired opinionated Melbournians to take to Twitter to tell the world what they thought was worth discussing. We then turned 100 of these discussions into permanent historical Wheeler Centre plaques that dotted the city of Melbourne. In the process we started 5,000 discussions, reached 62% of Melbourne’s Twitter population, and put the Wheeler Centre on the map.