These commercials are real, authentic phone calls we recorded and broadcast on the radio. You’ll hear someone from Fiat talking to two famous Belgian television weathermen, trying to bribe them. We made these prank calls trying to improve the weather forecast during the Fiat Cabrio Days, where more sun would mean more Cabrio sales. This way these calls and their indecent proposal made headline news in Belgium. The campaign also proved that the Belgian weathermen are completely independent and untouchable. Just like the weather.

First: find the most famous Belgian weathermen - one week, March 2011 Second: set up a prank call to bribe them - 2 days, March 2011 Third: record a conversation during which we offer money to improve the weather forecast on television - 1 day, March 2011 Fourth: turn these calls into radio commercials and broadcast them on national radio - 2 weeks, March-April 2011 Fifth: claim the calls with press releases and media support - 1 week, April 2011 Sixth: use the media coverage to create a direct campaign inviting people to the event - 2 weeks, April 2011 Seventh: close the deal - 2 weeks, April 2011.The campaign ran just as planned originally.

The campaign started with a prank call we then broadcasted on the radio, this kicked off a nationwide PR campaign.So the initial investment in bought media generated nearly the same amount of attention in earned media.We generated earned impressions in TV, digital, radio and press, worth 195,431 euros. This is the kind of budget any brand would have to spend to run a national media campaign in Belgium.It came on top of the initial media investment of 246,658 euros. Meaning we nearly doubled our media investment and generated a total of 702,261 free impressions.