In order to promote Jay-Z's recently released book, Decoded, the rapper teamed up with Bing and creative agency, Droga5, in a marketing effort that created quite a stir in several major cities.
Content from the book's 300 pages was placed on various "secret pages" in locations throughout cities like New York (the rapper's hometown) and London. The goal of the month-long campaign was to engage fans in a real-life treasure hunt. Jay-Z's fans, who Bing researchers found to be heavy search engine users, were eager participants in the online/offline effort.
Once fans spotted the secret pages in such places as billboards and even at the bottom of swimming pools, they were to log on to Bing.com/Jay-Z to "decode" the messages they found. As more pages were found, the Bing website allowed Jay-Z fans to work together and share clues about where the next "secret page" could be spotted. Every fan who participated in the "decoding" was automatically entered to win a copy of the specific page they found signed by the rapper himself.
Great idea. Great Pairing. Jay-Z has tons and tons and tons (ok you get it) of fans. Naturally the book was going to be fairly successful based on that alone. But throw in an impressive marketing campaign to top it off and BAM- not only did the book get listed on Oprah's Book Club and on the NYT Best Seller List, but Bing also boosted its relationship with new and existing users.
The "Decoded" scheme seems to have unlocked several very important take-aways for future marketing campaigns, as well. Primarily, it is going to become increasingly important for campaigns to engage consumers through an interactive and incentivized strategy that cohesively links offline participation with online participation. Secondly, fellow marketers should take note of the power and reach of search engines and how a participation with one could produce a very successful and mutually beneficial relationship.
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