2015 Promo & Activation

ANTONYMOUS - THE DIGITAL SMOKE BOMB

TitleANTONYMOUS - THE DIGITAL SMOKE BOMB
BrandPIRATENPARTEI DEUTSCHLAND
Product/ServiceANTONYMOUS - THE DIGITAL SMOKE BOMB
Category C07. Corporate Image & Communication
Entrant Company SERVICEPLAN Munich, GERMANY
Advertising Agency SERVICEPLAN Munich, GERMANY
Advertising Agency 2 PLAN.NET Munich, GERMANY
Media Agency MEDIAPLUS Munich, GERMANY
Credits
Name Company Position
Alexander Schill Serviceplan Chief Creative Officer
Christoph Nann Serviceplan Executive Creative Director
Wolf-Eike Galle Serviceplan Creative Director
Oliver Olsen Serviceplan Creative Director
Christoph Schoenbaeck Serviceplan Copywriter
Maurice Christoph Sarnacki Serviceplan Copywriter
Andrej Krahne Serviceplan Copywriter/Art Director
Alexander Fleischer Serviceplan Account Supervisor
Robin Stolp Serviceplan Account Manager
Yves Haltner FAUST Illustrator
Bjoern Paprycka BurnPepper Productions Screendesign

The Brief

Google collects all data about us through our search requests. The Pirate Party sees this as a threat for our basic right of privacy. To raise awareness for this issue, we created Antonymous – the digital smoke bomb – that confuses Google with a simple trick: Once you’ve opened the Antonymous page in the browser, you can start your Google search. But now, whenever you type in your search request, Antonymous additionally googles its antonym – the opposite – at the same time. If you google “woman”, Antonymous googles “man” in the background. If you search for “holiday UK”, Antonymous looks for “work USA”.

Campaign Success

If we want to challenge Google, which is one of the most innovate companies in the world, we have to be innovate as well. That’s why, we created an interactive website that works like the search engine but does the exact opposite. Antonymous is an online tool that was never used before: it accesses a growing database that provides users with numerous antonyms to generate fake search results. Various online dictionaries were combined with 10 thousands of additional antonyms. Furthermore, Antonymous was programmed to automatically open those results, making Google believe that you search – and find – the exact opposite of our actual search request.

Describe the success of the promotion with both client and consumer including some quantifiable results

With up to 800.000 page views per day, the Pirate Party’s website made Antonymous available to a large audience. Followers shared Antonymous on social media and the digital smoke bomb was featured on blogs and websites. The users’ favorite fake search results we shared, liked and commented, which triggered discussions about data privacy. In this way, the “digital smoke bomb” not only made it more difficult for Google to target and profile its users. Antonymous also managed to draw the users’ attention on one of the Pirate Party’s most relevant political issues.

Explain why the method of promotion was most relevant to the product or service

The Pirate Party stands for civil rights and wants to promote their engagement for data privacy. To make the abstract problem of data collection tangible for the target group, we found an innovative solution that takes place exactly where the problem is rooted – at the Internet users’ most used searching machine: Google. Antonymous – the digital smoke bomb, enables users to get less transparent for Google’s targeting and profiling. Antonymous confuses Google with a simple trick: Once you’ve opened the Antonymous website, you can start your Google search. But whatever you search, Antonymous additionally googles its antonym – the opposite – at the same time. If you google “woman”, Antonymous googles “man” in the background. “Holiday” and “UK” becomes “work” and “USA”. Therefore, existing search engine functionalities have been turned into something new: The “opposite search engine”, sensitized Internet users directly on the point of being and helped users to get less transparent.