| Title | BERNIE SPEED TEST |
| Brand | ARCUB |
| Product/Service | BUCHAREST2021 – THE EUROPEAN CAPITAL OF CULTURE |
| Category |
C01. Use of Digital in a PR campaign |
|
Entrant
|
PUBLICIS ROMANIA Bucharest, ROMANIA
|
|
Idea Creation
|
PUBLICIS ROMANIA Bucharest, ROMANIA
|
|
PR
|
PUBLICIS ROMANIA Bucharest, ROMANIA
|
Credits
| Jorg Riommi |
Publicis Romania |
Chief Creative Officer |
| Mihnea Gheorghiu |
Publicis Romania |
Group Creative Director |
| Roxana Nita |
Publicis Romania |
Art Director |
| Mihnea Gheorghiu |
Publicis Romania |
Group Creative Director |
| Mihai Pocorschi |
Nurun Romania |
Digital Creative |
| Mihai Pocorschi |
Nurun Romania |
Digital Producer |
| Mihai Botarel |
RxM Creative |
Creative Director |
| Bogdan Savonea |
Rage! (App) |
Co-Founder |
The Campaign
In his tweet, Mr. Sanders said that it’s unacceptable for the US to have lower internet speed than in Bucharest, Romania. So we created a fun tool that calculates the internet speed, so that anyone in the world can see how much faster/slower their internet speed really is compared to Bucharest’s average and see what Mr. Sanders’ reaction to that would be. Then, we also linked the site to the portal Bucharest2021 – The European Capital of Culture, so people can see that Bucharest has so much more to offer than just fast internet. In other words, we literally used our internet speed to give Bucharest the positive global exposure it deserves.
Execution
www.berniespeedtest.com was created and launched in under 10 hours. We developed the internet speed test algorithm from scratch and wrote over 30 meme-like reaction from Bernie, 6-7 different ones for each internet speed interval (below 20 Mbps, 20-30 Mbps, 30-40 Mbps, 40-60 Mbps and above 60 Mbps). We launched it on the night between March 3rd and March 4th. Then, we added a link to the Bucharest2021 portal, so people can discover more about our city than just the internet speed.
In one simple Facebook share, the website went instantly viral: on the first day alone, we had 130.000 unique visitors from 172 countries (out of 193 countries in the world). It was on prime-time news material on EVERY national TV channel and the story got picked up by major international press publications, like CNN, CNN España, NBC, CBS, ABC, getting more than $1 million worth of free media. All of this only for $520 spent on hosting, traffic and maintenance.
The Situation
The website was a fast and direct response to Bernie Sanders tweet that turned a PR slip into a success story. We literally used our internet speed to give Bucharest a positive and global exposure.
The Strategy
The reactions to Mr. Sanders’ tweet were extreme. Many were offended, while others cracked jokes. Our response saw the positive side of his tweet and, in a fun and non-condescending way, we let everyone check for themselves if their internet speed really is slower than in Bucharest. Since people of the world don’t know many things about a city which is a candidate for the European City of Culture, we literally used its internet speed to give Bucharest the positive global exposure it deserves.