Brief/Objective:

• Help build the Daily Telegraph daily e-newsletter database. ( Overall target for 2006: capture 10,000 new, opted-in email addresses.)
• Increase readership of the Daily Telegraph by targeting an online audience

Strategy/Idea:

1. Use a viral mechanism to reach as many people as possible. Our device: An animated, satirical look at the history of The Ashes (the annual Australia v. England cricket test match), that leverages the hysteria of the summer cricket season. The animation sought to "fire up" cricket fans ahead of the next series - a friendly pot-shot at Australia's "old enemy" in the sporting arena.
2. Incentivise registration (providing of opted-in email address): building on the positive association with the Ashes created by the animated piece, we tied registration to e-newsletter to a prize draw for tickets to the Ashes.
3. Increase appeal for the Daily Telegraph among online audiences by demonstrating affinity with the medium and closely and positively linking the paper to the Australian Ashes campaign: the animation is littered with pop-culture references to demonstrate that the Daily Telegraph “get” the Net audience. The Telegraph's online managing editor Ricky Sutton outlined that "There's a whole market of internet natives who wouldn't specifically come to The Daily Telegraph. We wanted to show them we're real players".

The results:

In the 2 weeks that the animation and competition ran, we increased the opted-in, e-newsletter database by 8,378 new users, almost reaching the entire year’s target in only two weeks.
A phenomenal response that far exceed client expectations.
Furthermore, the Ashes viral contributed to a 35% increase in traffic to The Daily Telegraph website, with 101,822 viewings over the two week period.