FUTURE DAILY ON APRIL FOOL

Credits & Description:

Category: Best Use of Online Advertising
Advertiser: METRO HONG KONG
Product/Service: METRO DAILY
Agency: McCANN WORLDGROUP
Date of First Appearance: Mar 15 2010
Entrant Company: McCANN WORLDGROUP, Hong Kong, HONG KONG
Entry URL: http://worklikethis.info/awardentry/2011/?cannes.future_daily_on_april_fool.media.best_use_of_online_advertising
Chief Creative Officer: Spencer Wong (McCann Worldgroup)
Executive Creative Director: Nick Lim (McCann Worldgroup)
Creative Director: Joseph Mok/Law Chi Hang (McCann Worldgroup)
Art Director: Gary Lam (McCann Worldgroup)
Interactive Content Director: Zoe Kuo (McCann Worldgroup)
Writer: Law Chi Hang/April Fang/Spring Liu (McCann Worldgroup)
Publication Editor: Jeff Lee/Jeff Wong (Metro Publishing)
Technical Director: Henry Chu (pill & pillow)
Production Porgrammer: Keat Mok/Anna Tsang (pill & pillow)
Photo-retoucher: James Chan/Eddy Cheung (Surreal Digital Imaging /In-Between)
Photographer: Marco Chow/Dick Chan (Wow Production / D-shot)
Account Service: Yen Lee Winson Wong/Chris Tam (McCann Worldgroup)
Integrated Communications Planner: Penelope Yau (McCann Worldgroup)
Production Content Director: Paul Swee (McCann Worldgroup)
Media placement: Website - Online - 15 March 2010
Media placement: IPhone Application - IPhone - 15 March 2010
Media placement: Facebook Fans Page - Facebook - 15 March 2010
Media placement: Banner Ad - Online - 15 March 2010
Media placement: Print Campaign - 5 Versions - Metro Daily - 15 March 2010
Media placement: Magazine Advertorial - 2 Versions - POP / BOX - 15 March 2010
Media placement: Facebook Application - Facebook - 15 March 2010
Media placement: Poster Campaign - 4 Versions - Guerllia - 15 March 2010
Media placement: News Programme - 6 Spots - Roadshow Transit TV Network - 3 March 2010
Media placement: Newspaper On April Fool Day - Metro Daily - 1 April 2010

Insights, Strategy & the Idea
Hong Kong is facing increasing threats to press freedom. So when METRO DAILY came to us for an ad campaign, we convinced them of their duty to do something more important, together.

We wanted to alarm people the alarming decline of freedom of speech, and provide a way for people to speak freely again without the fear of getting into trouble.

The Internet is now the only channel where people can still express themselves freely. Our strategy is to find a way to cleverly channel the honest voices from online to the traditional media to effectively alarm people of the threats to press freedom.

Creative Execution
We created a website and mobile site 'newsin18yrs.com' and asked people: What will be making news headlines in 18 years?

People were invited to write their own stories on things that matter to their hearts, from politics, social issues, the economy, sports to entertainment.

We then published the most voted-for stories on the website, word-for-word, in a special edition paper that we distributed to the public on April Fool's Day.

Our true motive was to give people a lawful channel to express their heartfelt opinions. And we have achieved that successfully by the use of a futuristic theme and an April Fool's launch. You can't jail someone over a fictional article on April Fool's Day, can you?

Results and Effectiveness
With self-expression as the only incentive, we received over a thousand articles in just a month, and over 200,000 people visited our website.

'It's a reinvention,' Audrey Eu, Hong Kong Civic Party Leader, on Future Daily.
'A disruption,' Claudia Mo, famous media critic, on Future Daily.

Not only were we impressed by the number of articles on the site, the contents of the articles were as overwhelming. We received countless articles on topics being constantly silenced in the traditional media, from comments on Taiwan, to the infamous and most censored subject of all times - the June 4th Incident.