Internet Shut Down

Name	Position	Company
Gideon Amichay	Creative Director	Y&R
Eran Gefen	Creative Director	Y&R Interactive
Lena Feldman	Art Director	Y&R Interactive
Moti Rubinshtein	Art Director	Y&R
Roy Cohen	Copywriter	Y&R Interactive
Adam Polachek	Supervisor	Y&R
Racheli Ben Avi	Supervisor	Y&R Interactive
Asit Avnaim	Flash Designer	Y&R
Dima Patt	Flash Designer	Y&R Interactive
Steve Reizes	Flash Designer	Y&R Interactive
: Michal Karny	Account Executive	Y&R Interactive
Yariv Ganor	Planning	Y&R

On July 12th 2006, two Israelis were abducted by the Hezbollah. Since their kidnapping no news about them has been received. To keep their issue a top priority on the public's and the government's agenda, we knew we had to create an impact no one could stay indifferent to. We decided to launch a campaign that has never been attempted before and engage the country in a whole new way.

Precisely one year after the kidnap, we invited every major site to stop their activity for five minutes and place a message: "The soldiers cannot be found". This is a variation of "The Page cannot be found" message appearing when loading an inactive website. On July 12th 2007, at 09:05 the internet stopped!

Internet's importance today is stronger than ever. In order to communicate the message to as many people as possible we had to engage as many websites as possible. That is why we decided to use the simple strategy of the sites as both media and communication channels at the same time.

All the top 400 Israeli sites answered the call and posted the message. Hundreds more joined the campaign and spontaneously posted the message, using their own designs. Even Google found it important to address the subject. The impact was so powerful even Israeli television networks and radio stations decided to stop their broadcast, in solidarity. The campaign received amazing coverage worth millions in free press. The buzz was huge: 65% of the Israeli population was either directly exposed to the action or had heard about it.