Title	THE GUY WHO CUT EVERYTHING IN HALF
Brand	DEUTSCHER ANWALTVEREIN
Product/Service	LEGAL ADVICE (GERMAN BAR ASSOCIATION)
Category	C02. Use of Social in a PR campaign
Entrant Company	SERVICEPLAN Munich, GERMANY
Advertising Agency	SERVICEPLAN Munich, GERMANY
Advertising Agency 2	PLAN.NET Munich, GERMANY

Name	Company	Position
Alexander Schill	Serviceplan	Chief Creative Officer
Benedikt Goettert	Serviceplan	Executive Creative Director
Philipp Stute	Serviceplan	Copywriter
Julius Steffens	Serviceplan	Art Director
Frank Meinke	Serviceplan	Account Supervisor
Christine Breithaupt	Serviceplan	Account Supervisor
Christina Mayer	Serviceplan	Account Supervisor
Nicolas Diekmann	Serviceplan	Account Supervisor
Florian Panier	Serviceplan	Executive Creative Producer
Dennis Fritz	Serviceplan	Senior Motion Designer
Franz Roeppischer	Serviceplan	Creative Innovation Director
Lorenz Langgartner	Serviceplan	Creative Innovation Director

The Campaign

In Germany a divorce can cost you up to 50% of your belongings. Consulting a lawyer and getting an prenuptial agreement before your wedding can help to prevent that. But hardly anybody in Germany knew, talked or even cared about this problem. The German Bar Association, representing 66,000 lawyers, wanted to change that. So we transformed the lawyers' message into a fascinating story: We invented “Martin G.”, a German husband who took “splitting” up with his wife literally. He cut their entire household in halves and sold his parts on eBay: a sofa, a bike, a teddy bear, even a car and much more. All auctions included a YouTube-video showing “Martin” cutting the items and sarcastically thanking his ex-wife for “12 beautiful years”. Our story was picked up by media all around the world – even twice! First “Martin G.’s” story became top news in 151 countries. And after we revealed the story in a press conference and on the German Bar Associations’ online portal, we gained a second wave of media attention. This time news media spread our message word by word: prenuptials can prevent cases like that of “Martin G.”! People who visited the online portal found free information on prenuptials – and reasons why to consult a lawyer.

The Brief

We wanted to get as many people as possible to talk about the potential consequences of a divorce. As our budget was only 5,000 €, we had to find a way to make our message viral. So we decided to wrap our concern in a story that was emotional, relevant and entertaining. Our research focused on the question how to tell the story and where to place it, to make it as shareable as possible.

Execution

Phase 1: Laying out the bait We started our viral campaign by placing “Martin G.’s” auctions on ebay and embedding the YouTube video. We monitored Social Media to detect audience reactions. For two days nothing happend. Then one of the auctions was posted by a user on reddit and from there took off to social and traditional media. Within days the whole world talked about the guy who cut everything in half. Phase 2: Harvest We waited until worldwide attention for our story reached its peak. Then we revealed the stunt with a press conference. This led to a second wave of attention for our concern, especially in Germany. Most news media spread our message word by word. This led to a massive increase of visits on our website, where people foung free legal advice on prenuptial agreements and reasons why to consult a lawyer before getting married.

Our story made it around the world – two times! First “Martin G.” hit the news and social media around the world. And after we revealed the story in a press conference and on the German Bar Associations’ online portal , we gained a second wave of media attention. This time our message was spread word by word: prenuptials can prevent cases like that of “Martin G.”! Overview of what we achieved: - our message made it to news in 151 countries - > 7 million YouTube views - most talked about topic an all social platforms during the campaign - almost 17 million euros earned media - traffic on client’s online platform increased by 173% during campaign

The Strategy

We had to deal with two obstacles: Our message was not part of our target groups everyday lives and we had no budget to place it there with a classical campaign. So our success depended on people discovering and sharing our message themselves. Two factors were essential: We had to create an authentic, entertaining and relevant story. And we had to place it where our target audience could find it. Through research we found out that many young couples visit ebay when furnishing their first flat together. That’s why we chose ebay auctions as our medium. As statistics show that moving image contents are much more likely to be shared, we embedded a YouTube video in every auction. This turned out to be the perfect setting for a worldwide viral success.