Absa L'Atelier is the premier art competition in South Africa, providing a platform for young artists. The 2012 prizes included residencies in Paris, New York and Sylt.

To demonstrate there’s no substitute for real experiences, under hypnosis, young artists took part in an experiment. They were told they were the winners of the competition in one of these cities and to paint what they saw.

Experiments were documented into a series of online films that drove other artists to enter online. Postcards, as entry forms, were posted from the three cities. The campaign was pushed by radio, poster and print.

The campaign used artworks created under hypnosis by young artists. This demonstrated to other young artists that there is no substitute for real experiences. In short, we used art to communicate a call for entries into an art competition.

The campaign exceeded targets with close to 3,000 unique website visits with 59% returning at least once. Visitors to the website clicked through 3 pages on average and spent more than 3 minutes each on the website. Mobile/tablet interaction was higher, with visitors spending closer to 4 minutes on the site. This included an additional 2,300 unique visitors.