The challenge was to sell 5,000 overnight stays during a short period of time. The offer: a 60% discount. So we created a not-so-fictional character: a young and radical brand manager (the person actually exists) that decided to start a rebellion against traditional advertising. He edited his own TV commercial on PowerPoint (a truly amateur one) and ran it on national TV. Instead of giving people the 60% discount, he made a deal: if you send this commercial to ten friends, we will give you a 60% discount.The strategy was to achieve new customers, but since we had a good mailing of loyal customers, a member-get-member effort would make a lot of sense.We were fully booked 15 days ahead of our target deadline. In the first weekend alone 15,000 consumers had already sent the video away and were in personal touch with our character, by email, on his Facebook, or through his blog. There was a 23% conversion rate among the senders of the email. Emails are still being received everyday, and this is becoming a strong database and pre-sales are being made for the next season, with no use of media at all.

1) We started running the Powerpoint homemade "I hate advertising" spot on national TV, thus creating a fact.2) We built the character's blog, orkut and facebook profile, and had a team posting social media (inclusing twitter) comments under his name.3) We put up a seeding strategy placing comments on the bizarre spot and on the promotion itself.4) We had an email marketing system working for everyone to send the video to friends and/or get in touch with our character.

We were fully booked 15 days ahead of our target deadline. In the first weekend alone 15,000 consumers had already sent the video and were in personal touch with our character, by email, on his Facebook, or through his blog. There was a 23% conversion rate among the senders of the email. Emails are still being received everyday, and this is becoming a strong database and pre-sales are being made for next season, with no use of media at all.