The Travel Book Shop is a bookshop in Zurich that specializes in special maps and travel literature. But these days, many people get their information on the web, trusting mainstream maps and comments made by anonymous users. We wanted to show them the limits of Internet content and attract the attention of the Swiss media, all without a media budget. In the name of shop manager Gisela Treichler, we posted a video showing the wreck of a Google Street View car on YouTube. Her comment: Real travel starts where the Internet ends. In addition, we circulated photographs supporting the video’s authenticity. This led to over 250,000 views in just two weeks. Over 3000 web portals and blogs worldwide were talking about Gisela Treichler’s video. After the video was a worldwide topic, we provided Swiss media with insider information and behind-the-scenes material of our marketing stunt. This encouraged them to start running stories about the Travel Book Shop and how it had fooled the internet community. It was even the headline story of Switzerland’s largest newspaper, with 1.8 million readers. Another 200,000 clicked on the article online. Travelbookshop.ch had 300% more visitors and sales went up by over 13% compared with the same period last year.

We posted the video with the Google car wreck on YouTube on 3 August 2012, under the name of the general manager of the Travel Book Shop. As proof of the video’s authenticity, we also created a complete travel report for another person that likewise contained photos of the wreck. We posted the report in various travel blogs and also published the photos individually on flickr. We then waited for the reactions from the media. Once the international buzz about the video had reached Switzerland, we split the beans. We confirmed that the video was a fake and that it was a marketing stunt by the Travel Book Shop. We even provided local media with background information about how we pulled it off. The strategy worked: as a result, the country’s biggest daily ran a front-page story about the little bookshop in Zurich that had fooled the world’s Internet community. It reported on the wreck, the Travel Book Shop, the background to the story and the limitations of digital content.

In two weeks the video was viewed 250,000 times. Over 3000 web portals and blogs worldwide carried reports about it. A total of 1.8 million readers saw the front-page story in Switzerland’s biggest daily. Another 200,000 saw the article in the online edition. travelbookshop.ch recorded 300% more visitors and the store’s sales were up 13% compared with the same period last year, all without a media budget.

The cover story: http://www.20min.ch/digital/dossier/google/story/26731947

The making-of article: http://www.20min.ch/digital/news/story/-Die-Bilder-loesten-auch-Schadenfreude-aus--15992179