Draftfcb and EWZ: April Fool's joke as an advertising vehicle
The agency Draftfcb staged an April Fools' Day prank for EWZ. The story claimed that a cat had wandered between 150,000-volt power lines. An online poll then asked whether Zurich residents would be willing to tolerate a power outage to save the cat. 76 percent were against it; the online mob wanted to see the cat get zapped.
As an accompanying advertising measure for the EWZ online dialog magazine Powernewz presented on Monday, the agency responsible, Draftfcb, staged an EWZ April Fool's joke. The aim was to attract as many people as possible to the website. For example, one of the morning posts stated that a cat had got lost between 150,000-volt lines at the EWZ's Katz substation and could no longer find its way out. It was not possible to get it out without switching off the power. However, this required a 60-minute power cut in Zurich city center. On the Powernewz.ch/katze website, people could then vote on whether the power cut was justified. In the subsequent statement issued by EWZ in the evening
it was then said that only 24 percent of the 4,368 voters were in favor of rescuing the cat (the matter was probably seen through). However, the cat was saved by cat thief Fredi Rüegg (Beat Schlatter) without further ado. The fact that the EWZ was contrite at the end ("We apologize for this April Fool's joke") remains the only flaw in this otherwise successful campaign:
Harry Graf and Claudia Pfister. Responsible at Draftfcb: Nicolas Vontobel (CD), Roland Jäggi (AD), Boris Beuckmann (text), Christoph Bögli and Aline Litchenhaus (consulting).
