In April 2017 Sony Mobile was releasing a new smartphone, the Xperia XZs. Like all “s” phones this phone was not a flagship model. Sony Mobile briefed us to create compelling communications that would help get the phone ranged and into the mind of the target audience. The media budget was small and Sony Mobile needed their retail partners to believe in the communication in such a way that they also would help spread the campaign.

The objective was:

1) to engage retailers to range the phone and spread the campaign in social media.

2) to generate awareness about the Xperia XZs in the target group

3) to generate online engagement in the target group

4) to generate deeper engagement in the target group

It all started with Alan Walker posting a teaser-video in which he explains that his new music video was going to be released soon. Attentive viewers noticed that the teaser contained a web address: w41k3r50ny.com. On it you could only see three locked phones. Some days later the campaign officially went live. During three days we released snippets of Alan Walker’s music video. Each snippet contained a clue on how to find the passwords that would unlock the phones on the campaign site. For instance, you might see 100kth15up in the video – and if you knew what it meant

(look this up) you’d head to Google, search for “100kth15up”, find a video on Youtube with that name, look for clues in it, not find them and then realize you had to hit the subtitles-button to get the password. Sony Mobile, Alan Walker and partnering retailers all spread the word.