BRIEFSell tickets to a Boxing Day football match between neighbourhood rivals, Gold Coast and Brisbane.

CHALLENGEBoxing Day in Australia is traditionally reserved for watching cricket and finishing off leftover food from Christmas Day. Football is the furthest thing from people’s minds, particularly in the Gold Coast, who had the season’s lowest average home crowd attendance (less than 4,000 per game).

STRATEGYHistory shows even the fiercest enemies can put down their weapons over Christmas, but we wanted to stoke the rivalry between the two cities. Given little money and time, an experiential idea felt right, but we needed a twist that would spark an uproar and capture the interest of the media, who could help carry our idea beyond its budget.IDEAWe set up ‘Free Gift Wrapping’ stalls throughout Brisbane in the lead up to Christmas. The wrapping paper, which we’d designed and printed ourselves, looked just like any other type of Christmas wrapping paper, except for the fact that we’d cunningly designed each sheet with tiny, inconspicuous illustrations of Brisbane players in embarrassing situations, as well as messages that taunted their fans. Details of the match were also printed on the reverse (a little surprise once gifts had been unwrapped).

Thousands of shoppers, too caught up in the panic of last minute shopping, never realised. Until...

A few days later we sent a press release to media outlets, lifting the lid on the swindle, and of course pointing all blame at the Gold Coast football club.

The wrapping paper became a form of latent media - a candy-coated time bomb, eagerly accepted by our target, and designed to go off only when we knew it could inflict the most damage.

RESULTA lot of very unhappy Brisbanites.

$100,000+ in free media, from an outlay of just $15,000.

Match attendance of 11,000 - the highest in Gold Coast’s history - and nearly 300% up on season average.