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Droga5 continues to man the decks 24-7 as the Jay-Z scavenger hunt unfolds
By: Ann-Christine Diaz, Published: Nov 02, 2010
Earlier this month, Droga5 launched a campaign for Jay-Z as audacious as the performer himself. To promote his upcoming memoir Decoded, the agency defied publishing convention and decided to put every single page of the book out in the real world before it hit the shelves, via traditional—and sometimes very unconventional— out of home placements as well as an online scavenger hunt with Microsoft's Bing.The campaign made an opening splash at the Delano in Miami—a page was fully reproduced on the bottom of the hotel pool, with footnotes imprinted on towels strewn across the surrounding lounge chairs. While the words appear for real on the street, those who don't have access to the locations can find them via a unique application/game that Droga5 developed using Microsoft's Bing. Visitors to the site get daily clues, research-able via a Bing overlay, which will lead them to where the pages are, albeit virtually in Bing Maps.
Every day, about five to ten of the book's pages are unveiled, both in the real world and online—the result of a massive, 24-7 collaboration between agency staffers and vendors. With about two weeks and several pages to go until the book launches on November 16, the agency remains on a 24-7 schedule keeping players in hot pursuit.
Creativity talked to Droga5 creative director Neil Heymann and senior interactive producer Andrew Allen about how they kicked off the campaign and have maintained its momentum both on and offline.
Can you tell me about the origins of the campaign and how Bing got involved?
Neil Heymann: We had worked with Jay Z before on a commercial (Rhapsody). That had been successful and something he was personally quite fond of, and the opportunity came up with the new book and for us to work on a promotion of it. On a parallel path, we had been talking to Bing for quite some time and they were looking to do an integrated campaign with us. When we found out the name of the book was going to be Decoded, it seemed to fit perfectly, we approached Bing about it and they were very excited about it as well.Did you decide from the outset that all these elements were going to be involved? How did you arrive at that decision?
NH: As we continued to work with Bing, we obviously needed to make a lot of decisions as to how we make this experience accessible to everybody. The core part of the idea was these real, tactile pages. We wanted every page to actually physically live in the world. Then it became a matter of creating a compelling experience for people who couldn't actually get there. That's where Bing comes in. Through their product, we've been able to build this experience that allowed people to decode Jay-Z's lyrics and actually have the experience of finding the pages on their map. So the location is still at the core of the idea. But whether you're playing in Norway, or passing by it while you catch the bus to work in Brooklyn, you're still interacting with content and actively seeking it out.Delano Hotel Pool
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