Yellow Pages: "HUGE YELLOW DARTS" Ambient Advert by Cossette Media

Type of Entry: Product & Service
Category: Commercial Public Services
Title: HUGE YELLOW DARTS
Advertiser/Client: YELLOW PAGES GROUP
Product/Service: YELLOW PAGES DIRECTORIES
Entrant Company: COSSETTE MEDIA Toronto, CANADA
Media Agency: COSSETTE MEDIA Toronto, CANADA
Creative Credits
Name Company Position
Tim Beach Cossette Media Group Media Manager
Sebastien Bergeron Cossette (Montreal) Account Director
Marie-Lise Campeau Cossette (Montreal) Group Account Director
Marie-Helene Charest Cossette (Montreal) Account Supervisor
Andrew Bergstrom Cossette (Toronto) Strategic Planner
Daniel Vendramin Cossette (Toronto) Creative Director
Darren Clarke Cossette (Toronto) Creative Director
Ed Lea Cossette (Toronto) Art Director
Mark Lewis Cossette (Toronto) Copywriter
Details
Results and Effectiveness:
Yellowpages.ca unique visits increased +18% versus a year ago. Created huge buzz. Blogs popped up everywhere with people posting pictures of the darts. The local business owners that we partnered with loved the darts. Restaurant Manager: “It was good, quite effective, quite eye catching – became part of the furniture of the patio, it was a great partnership, we were pleased by all. It drew people to the patio with great attention to the Dart.” Yellowpages even had other retail owners call them and request a dart. Won GOLD at prestigious Canadian Innovation awards show.
Creative Execution:
To tie in with the yp.ca site maps that depict yellow darts indentifying locations, we demonstrated this “in real life” by placing huge darts directly into local businesses. The type of business “found” was written on the dart’s fin (ie. Music Store-Found). Each relevant location had a different execution strategy. Retail Stores – We used a “location scout” (who normally scouts commercials) to find and secure certain stores. There were many challenges securing the store locations ie- after the store and building owners agreed, we had to get the proper engineer drawings prior to dart installation. Restaurant Patios – Positioned right on patios, darts appeared to have crashed directly into a real table. Parking Lots – We reserved spots for delivery vans with a dart smashed into the roof. The vans were labeled with actual local plumbers and flower shops.
Insights, Strategy and the Idea:
Yellowpages had three main goals for this campaign: increase usage, create buzz for the brand/service and excite current retail customers. We repositioned Yellowpages as “The Find Engine” to differentiate from “search engines”. The challenge: demonstrate this in a dramatic, relevant way. The icon developed to represent this was a huge yellow dart. We set out to insert Yellowpages wherever & whenever “finding” local businesses is required. When looking for businesses, consumers want to find what they are looking for efficiently. The dart demonstrates how Yellowpages helps consumers find exactly what they’re looking for. The best way to dramatize the dart was to intersect consumers while they were at or near local businesses - deliver the message at a relevant time and place. The core of yp’s business is retail, so location was critically important. We used the retail channel by partnering with local businesses.