Commentary

Underground Puzzle Leads to Dirty Picture -- And Daffy's Discount Prices

Daffy's launched an unbranded outdoor campaign in subways last month that drove New Yorkers to Twitter for answers.

Johannes Leonardo was tasked by Daffy's to create a campaign targeting young, trendy adults. The project began with an explicit image of a naked man and woman, combined with a snappy tag line and list of Daffy's reduced prices. This picture was then cut into 40 different puzzle pieces, with each piece becoming an unbranded subway poster located in downtown Manhattan and Brooklyn stations.

Each puzzle piece was paired with a camera icon, encouraging passersby to snap a picture -- along with the Twitter hashtag: #UNDERGROUNDPUZZLE.

Instructions and additional clues were posted on a Twitter stream during the month-long campaign.

According to Jan Jacobs, founder of Johannes Leonardo, although the campaign lasted for a month, it took only two weeks for the completed puzzle to be found and posted to Twitter.

"We placed our posters on people's daily commute so they would spot them without having to go search," said Jacobs. "People would find a piece or two and then post them to Twitter. From there, we would aggregate all the found pieces -- enticing the greater online community to work together to collectively solve the puzzle."

There was no incentive offered to the first person to create the 40-piece puzzle; the campaign was launched to solely raise brand awareness to a specific demographic. Not even a gift card?

The final ad, featuring man, woman and the tagline, "More Bang. Less Buck," was revealed in its entirety on Fashion Pulse Daily.

The full image lives online, meta-tagged with Daffy's merchandise and pricing.

6 comments about "Underground Puzzle Leads to Dirty Picture -- And Daffy's Discount Prices".
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  1. John Maher, May 17, 2010 at 5:05 p.m.

    Smart. Great use of subway posters.

  2. Aaron B. from AnimationInsider.net, May 17, 2010 at 5:34 p.m.

    New Yorkers sure are strange... Clever campaign.

  3. Jennifer Hutcheson from Ash Breeze Media, May 17, 2010 at 6:45 p.m.

    Extremely naughty and clever. Well done!

  4. Todd Havens from The Visionaire Group, May 17, 2010 at 6:51 p.m.

    Crafty campaign. Me likey. Thanks for sharing, Amy.

  5. David Culbertson from LightBulb Interactive, May 17, 2010 at 7:09 p.m.

    Fascinating but maybe pointless. Any word on data to determine if it actually raise brand awareness?

  6. Harold Cabezas from Cabezas Communications, May 25, 2010 at 7:05 p.m.

    I think this was a very clever campaign, however, I feel an opportunity was lost. If a story line ran with the pieces-say a Twitter feed of story lines with regards to the two people-I think the appeal would have been greater, and I believe the concept would have had a longer life.

    Nonetheless, it was an extremely creative concept.

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