Zurich Brockenhaus, located in a trendy inner-city district, is Switzerland’s largest second-hand store. Despite the popularity of vintage shops, visitor numbers were down.

The assignment: To make the Brockenhaus a hip place to go for a target group with average incomes and an interest in fashion, furnishings and culture. The problem: How to compete with big campaigns for new products when you have a minimal budget and second-hand items?

Our objective: To create an idea so relevant to the target group that it generates traffic at the Brockenhaus, and so unconventional that the media would run stories about it.

We packaged our advertising as a cultural event at the Brockenhaus: an audio tour entitled: "Stories only second-hand goods can tell".

Thirteen famous Swiss authors wrote stories about the exciting lives articles led before coming to the Brockenhaus. The stories were transferred to audio guides and handed to visitors, who then went and discovered the objects and their stories.

This made second-hand items more unusual than new ones and also exploited all the channels available for cultural communication, such as subsidized billboards or cultural PR. Swiss National Television broadcast a 45 minutes special from the opening.

Visitor numbers rose 20%.

More people came to the opening than the Brockenhaus could accommodate. The exhibition proved so popular that it was prolonged by two months.

The value of the free media coverage (215,000 francs) exceeded the campaign budget seven times. Among other things, the following media aired special broadcasts or ran a cover story: SF1 Swiss National Television (penetration 31%), DRS1 Swiss National Radio, (penetration 38%) and Zurich's biggest daily newspaper, the "Tagesanzeiger", (penetration 51%).

The negative trend for visitors was reversed: during the month of the exhibition, the Brockenhaus had 20% more visitors. There was a lasting 7% increase in sales.

Zurich’s standard of living is so high that people no longer buy second-hand goods to save money. The Zurich Brockenhaus can only survive if it’s articles are regarded as fancy. The event gave items a new, intangible value.

Our target group mistrusts classical advertising. You cannot reach them with ad-based promises but with credible experiences that actively involve them. Culture is relevant to them and PR-based communication more acceptable than classical advertising.

We succeeded in reaching not only our target group but also journalists who write about culture: The entire PR value was seven times that of the campaign budget.