Stern.de: Fast News

Name	Position	Company
Ralf Heuel	Creative Director	Grabarz & Partner
Fedja Kehl	Art Director	Grabarz & Partner
Paul Von Mьhlendahl	Copywriter	Grabarz & Partner
Patrick Cahill	Agency Producer	Grabarz & Partner
Thomas Eickhoff	Account Supervisor	Grabarz & Partner
Ina Bach	Account Supervisor	Grabarz & Partner
Julia Duden	Advertiser`s Supervisor	Grabarz & Partner

The goal was to establish stern.de as the fastest news website in Germany. To achieve this, we combined a promotion in a movie theatre with a cinema ad. First, something relevant to the news happens in the cinema audience. Only two minutes later, an ad for stern.de in the same cinema deals with just this event.

The Promotion: In the middle of a cinema, shortly before the main feature. A pregnant woman in the audience gets contractions. She gets up, shouting in pain, and leaves the theatre with her husband. The Cinema Ad: While the audience is still discussing this event, the following cinema ad is screened: Chart and Announcer: "Now on stern.de" The chart is followed by a screenshot of the stern.de website with a photo showing the woman and her husband in the foyer of the cinema with newly-born twins in their arms. Announcer: "Twins born at cinema in Hamburg." Chart and Announcer: "News has never been this fast. stern.de"

The target market is composed of young, Internet-savvy people, who are easily reached in cinemas. By combining the cinema ad and the promotion we didn't only claim that stern.de is especially fast - but also proved it. And our target audience witnessed this fact firsthand.

As the promotion was unseen and surprising, word of mouth generated a significant spread. Hits on stern.de increased significantly after the promotion.