Yellow Pages draws users with pizza hunt

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA: To show how effective advertising in the Yellow Pages is, the directory recently partnered with Proximity to build and hide a pizza restaurant, with its contact details only available in the Yellow Pages.

The buzz of the Hidden Pizza Restaurant started with a letter box drop and a blog site. People were told that the pizzas would be free for two weeks, the only catch being they had to "look for it the way you would any other business".

Once people find the number in the Yellow Pages, they could ring and the address of the restaurant - which is hidden at the end of an alleyway with no sign outside - would be sent to their phone via SMS.

In two weeks, over 8,000 people have found the Hidden Pizza Restaurant, out of which 70% of them found it in the Yellow Pages.

Testimonial-style ads found to work

Michelle Sherwood, general manager of Yellow Pages' parent company Sensis, said the campaign demonstrated in a very public way the effectiveness of advertising through the Yellow Pages search network.

"We've been using testimonial-style ads for a few years and we know they work," Sherwood said.

"This campaign was an experiment to re-engage both users and advertisers with the Yellow Pages brand and it exceeded our expectations."

James McGrath, creative chairman of Clemenger Proximity Melbourne, said the concept was the ultimate litmus test for the Yellow Pages brand.

"We demonstrated the effectiveness of advertising in the Yellow Pages in the toughest conditions possible - we built a business, hid it, challenged people to find it and filmed the results."

To support the campaign, a series of TV ads, print, radio and online executions will follow starting from this week.

Via marketing-interactive.com